Her voice sounds like a sharp hiss—almost a snarl—and it takes a second for my brain to translate the words into the Northerly language. Making my mouth replicate the sounds is even harder. My tongue doesn’t want to bend the right ways. But I reach toward the Northerlies she’s shown me earlier and concentrate on the pins and needles in my palm as I whisper the call. After two tries I finally say it right, and a Northerly sweeps to my side, the cool air licking my skin.
“Cooooooool.”
“Not bad,” Audra agrees as I call two more Northerlies to join the other. “Now you need two Southerlies. Their call is, “ ‘Sweep to my side, please don’t delay. Share your warmth as you swirl and sway.’ ”
The Southerly tongue is sleepy, and the words flow into each other, almost like the command is one long sigh. I get it right on my third try, and make two Southerlies streak toward me. They feel like a hair dryer blasting my face.
“How do I make them stay?” I ask as the Northerlies push forward, ready to break free.
“You don’t want to make them stay. You want to make them merge.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“The wind doesn’t care what you meant. It’s extremely specific, and very literal. It won’t make assumptions, or read between the lines and figure out what you need. You have to be clear and precise. Give the exact command, or it won’t cooperate.”
“Fine, whatever.” I wish she’d lecture me another time. The Northerlies have tangled around my legs, trying to knock me over.
“You want the drafts to merge, so you need to command the Northerlies. They’re conquering winds. They want to dominate. They won’t merge unless you force them to. You have to tell them, ‘Yield.’ ”
I hiss the strange Northerly sound, and the drafts bend around each other into a small funnel.
“I did it.” I bounce on the balls of my feet. I can’t believe I made a tornado. A really tiny, wimpy one—but still. A tornado!
“You did it,” she repeats, and the surprise in her voice makes me meet her eyes. There’s a shine to them, a light that hasn’t been there before.
“What?”
She shakes her head. “It’s just . . . that’s not an easy thing to do. I was lying earlier when I said it’s a basic formula. I figured if you knew how hard it was, you wouldn’t even try.”
“Hey, I’m not that stubborn.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“I’m not,” I insist.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is you did it.” She grins at me through the darkness. Not quite a full smile, but much, much closer than she normally gets. “You’re very talented, Vane.”
My cheeks get hot. That might be the first compliment she’s ever given me. “What do I do now?”
“You need to add four Easterlies one by one. You already know how to call them. And to combine them, you say, ‘Connect.’ Make sure you count to five between each draft.”
I do as she says, and with each draft I add, the funnel in front of me grows, until I have a narrow cylinder of force shooting into the sky almost as high as Audra’s did.
So awesome.
“Now you concentrate on all the winds under your control. And you whisper ‘Amplify’ to the Northerlies. Then you jump back as far and fast as you can, or you’ll be in for the ride of your life.”
I jump back as the command is still leaving my lips, and the funnel triples, stretching wide enough to suck up a car, and soaring at least a hundred feet high.
“Holy crap, I can’t believe I did that,” I breathe.
“I can’t either.” But she doesn’t say it meanly. She looks at me and laughs.
Laughs.
It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard.
And then she has to kill the buzz and say, “Now step into the funnel.”
My insides bunch up. “You’re still serious about that?”
“You need to get used to keeping your bearings in a windstorm. And stopping yourself from falling is pretty much the most important skill you can master.”
“Yeah, but isn’t there a way to help me master it that doesn’t involve a hundred-foot free fall from the top of a cyclone?”
“Nothing will motivate you more to get it right. Come on. You can do this, Vane. Do you remember the command I used to call the Southerly to catch me?”
I have a feeling it’s only going to make her more gung ho with her make Vane step into the giant vortex of death plan, but I love seeing her so confident in my skills. So I tell her, “Catch me gently, hear my call. Sweep me softly before I fall.”
“Perfect. Wait till you’re actually falling before you whisper the command. But don’t wait too long, or it won’t have enough time to slow your landing.”
I stare at the funnel.
“Want me to push you in?” she offers.
Stepping into a tornado screams This is the dumbest thing you will ever do. But I’m finally impressing her.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and kind of walk/fall into the funnel.
The roar of the winds drowns out my scream as the gusts shove me skyward so fast I’m certain I’ll throw up. As soon as my stomach returns to its rightful place in my body, that is.
The winds tug at my skin, making it ripple from the force, and for one brilliant second, I’m weightless. Not flying. Not falling. Just floating above it all, nothing but me and the sky. Then I start to drop and can’t—for the life of me—remember a single word of the command I need.