I scrubbed at my face, trying to keep everything in perspective. There would still be drawbacks. The convergence of the spheres was always a limiting factor, and I’d still have to negotiate terms in any summoning I performed, which in itself would limit how often I could summon.
I dug a piece of chalk out of the box where I kept my implements, then I moved to an open space on the basement floor, well away from Tessa’s diagram. I didn’t want to do anything that could interfere with that one. I crouched and began slowly sketching, thinking carefully about how to adjust the ward structure of Tessa’s diagram for what I wanted.
It took well over an hour, and my back and knees were aching when I finally closed the diagram. I set the chalk down and brushed my hands off, then stood stiffly. I’d had to redo parts of it several times, going by pure I-think-this-makes-sense instinct. I could only hope that my instinct was on track. I scrutinized the diagram meticulously, looking for any remaining flaws.
Now to test it. A small test—just to see if I had any clue at all or if I was trying to do something that couldn’t be done.
I took a deep breath and pulled potency to me. The power dribbled into my control in small erratic bursts, exactly as it had with Tessa’s beacon. For a summoning, it would have been disastrous, but I didn’t need it to be steady and strong since I wasn’t relying on it to hold protections or bindings or anything else. I only needed it to go into the warded diagram. Focusing, I slowly released the potency down into the diagram, watching as it filled the structure, settling into the wards like a blend of light and water, visible as a shimmering brilliance to othersight.
I finally released the diagram from my control. I hadn’t pulled much power—there wasn’t much to be pulled—but as far as I could tell it was staying in the diagram, exactly where I’d channeled it.
“Holy shit,” I said, giddy. I made an arcane battery! And without all that messy murder and torture business!
I watched the diagram obsessively for nearly half an hour, then decided that it seemed to be holding the power. The next question was, how much would it hold? Enough for a summoning? And could I then draw that potency out steadily enough to use it effectively?
I focused and channeled another small surge of potency into the diagram, deeply pleased when it settled in, like honey poured into a half-full bowl.
This was too fucking cool. I scrutinized my “arcane battery” again, finally feeling a measure of confidence that the diagram was holding steady. It was tempting to see just how much this diagram could hold, but I forced myself to hold back, at least for now. I could sense that there was more potency after the second time I’d channeled the power and that there was room for some more, but there was no point in testing the storage capacity at this time. The big test would be whether I could use that potency.
I glanced over at Tessa’s beacon, satisfied that it was still sending out its arcane call, then climbed the stairs and locked the basement door behind me. The worst that could happen if the diagram could not hold the power overnight would be that it would trickle away, back into the normal power structure of this sphere.
And if it was still there, and usable, by morning, then this whole summoning gig would suddenly be about a thousand times easier.
AS SOON AS I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, I RAN downstairs to check my storage diagram. Even before coffee—which for me was a major deal. The basement was stuffy and hot, but I barely noticed. The potency still lay pooled in the diagram, thrumming softly to senses beyond hearing. “Hot damn, I am good,” I murmured, grinning like an idiot.
Now, could I use it? I rubbed my hands together gleefully in my best mad scientist impression and ignored my body’s demand for coffee and food. I took a deep breath to focus and pulled the potency from the diagram—slowly at first, then with more certainty, until I could feel the power coiling and crackling around me. I laughed as I felt the potency respond in shimmering undulations. It was only a couple of hours after dawn, at a time of the month when potency was erratic and hard to pull, and here I was with smooth and solid power at my disposal.
I toyed with the power for a while, practiced sending it back into the diagram and pulling it out again, my understanding of the wards deepening as I watched how the power flowed. I could see ways that the structure could be adjusted to hold power more efficiently or altered to allow for different uses.