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Her training started early each day, long before the sunrise hit the waves or the first passenger rose to marvel at its beauty. The sailors had become accustomed to watching Isla on the upper decks, where she would sit with her legs crossed and practise her breathing. More passengers would pass along with the steadily rising sun. Some tittered, some made a derisive remark or two, but Isla let their noise glide over her with the morning wind.

Eshe had taught her to concentrate on her core. 'The centre of our theurgy,' the Ligueri had said, 'and for every theurgist, its location differs.

'You will recognise it as the point where all pressure converges, every time your theurgy manifests. You must control the flow of this pressure. Summon it at whim; suppress it every other time. Only then do you have control of your theurgy, and not your theurgy over you.'

Isla had recognised her core the very second Eshe taught her of it: the place just at the back of her head; the throbbing in her brain that marked an impending burst. Slowly, her muscles eased, her breathing fell into a numbing pattern. Only once she lulled herself into a trance-like state could she muster the familiar throbbing, though now it brought her not pain, but a gentle pulsing.

Before she knew it, the sun had roused well from its slumber in the east, and a warmth was crawling up her arm. Isla opened her eyes to see her salamander nudging her cheek, and Eshe approaching from the galleries.

'It is time for the next part of your training,' was all her mentor said before walking away. Isla pushed herself up with a weary sigh and followed.

Eshe's cabin was every bit as Isla had imagined. Dark, that the window was shut, but tidy to an almost uncanny perfection and smelling of freshly turned earth. Eshe pulled a stool and motioned for her to sit.

'You will try to coerce me.' Eshe sat on the bed paces from Isla. 'I will block you with my walls. Cognitive defences, learned men call it, what is known in the Eastern Isles as one's jii; mental shields anyone – unblooded or theurgic – can train themselves to build. I want you to know how it feels to hit upon one of those walls. Turn every corner. Study every brick.'

'How? I've never used my theurgy before.' At least, not intentionally.

'Start by summoning your core. Feel its pulse, its warmth ... channel it ...'

Eshe's voice faded as Isla focused in on herself. She was not yet a master at manifesting her theurgy. It took many attempts before she was able to induce herself into a meditative state and conjure the tingling at the back of her head. Her grasp upon it was tenuous, but the pulsing was there; rising, falling with every sway of the ocean. Isla held onto the current, each turn hitting her harder until the weight of a thousand tides squeezed her brain. She gathered them within herself, her core swelling with its heat, and before she could lose it, Isla hurled her pulses at the Ligueri—

—and met with an emptiness.

She was going too fast, too hard; the void pulling her deeper. She was losing grasp on the world. Isla held on, using Eshe's impassive face as an anchor to keep her grounded, but her senses were jumbling, it was harder to concentrate, and soon she was tumbling into a whirlpool of madness.

Thoughts flitted in and out of her mind. Chaotic, nonsensical ... strangely real ... as real as her salamander's fire and the pungent taste it left roaring between her eardrums. She would need to calm it ... a bedtime story would do. But that was ridiculous. It was not even night; it was a flask of jin and she needed to go down to the crypts to dress Haana's wounds ...

Eshe was looming over her when she came to. Isla blinked, her fever-dream diminishing without a trace.

'I went hard on you.' Eshe pressed a cup to Isla's lips. 'Just a taste of what may happen should you dive into the wrong mind.'

Isla's mind still rattled. She took the cup from Eshe's hands and drunk to the last drop.

'The void is a dark place and difficult to break free from. You were gone for two hours. It would be longer if I entrapped you there. Possibly forever, if I took your power and unleashed it back at you.'

A shudder tingled down Isla's spine. She had put her sanity in the hands of a stranger. She rose, but her legs had fallen asleep in the hours that passed.

'This is what you risk every time you use your theurgy,' continued Eshe. 'You never know who may have the skill to set up a strong void. Here. You need to eat.'

Isla took the offered cake. It was brittle in her mouth, and coarse when it ran down her throat.

'Fortunately not many can set defences half as effective as mine. Most only erect simple walls.'

Her lesson resumed after Isla was rested, this time with the rudiments. Instead of the void, Eshe met her with a wall. For the rest of the week, Isla was made to test them until she grew familiar with the patterns in Eshe's defences. Certain threads, should upon which she apply a little pressure, came the slightest twitch. From there, it was only a matter of drawing out her theurgy. She pooled a large force in her mind, and in one rapid burst directed it towards Eshe's weaker points.

Isla immediately dropped her theurgy, for her instructor was knocked right into the wall.

'Very good.' Eshe nursed her head. 'Powerful. But not at all subtle. I knew you were a wild boar, but by Ghenzu that was a mess!'

'You said nothing of subtlety.'

'Did I need to? It is in your best interest to be subtle.'

'I don't know what you expect. Coercion is by definition forceful.'

Eshe shook her head, her eyes shut as though merely looking at Isla would inflict her with the same stupidity. 'Your theurgy has far greater potential. It can be manifested in two ways. A forceful coercion, by your name – where you break into a man and move him as a puppet. Intrusive, powerful, and its effects gone the minute you leave your thrall.'

'But he will know I've been there.'

'Precisely. The other is ... a soft compulsion. Delicate, undetected. You plant an idea into a man and have him believe it his own. Its effects linger even after you leave his mind.'

'I ... am capable of that?'

'Truly, I do not know. It is not something all coercers can learn, just as imposing emotions is not a skill all empaths can master.'

All in good time. Isla had only started learning the ropes of her theurgy, but even then she was fast. Eshe had told her herself.

'It will be much harder to execute a soft compulsion,' continued Eshe, 'even if you are capable of it. Especially to compel people into doing things that contradict their strongest values. Sometimes it will be impossible, depending on how firmly they adhere to their moral code.'

'But you can teach me this?'

'I can try.'

    
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