Chapter 71 Keep the Receipt for Your Fist

Merrit was trying to give Nell her keys back.

She kept both hands occupied: a small bundle under one arm, the padded chain in the other. The keys hung between them on his extended finger.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we can arrange something with a quieter specimen.”

“Feed them before you open.”

“Nell.”

“The low stalls first. The thin one bites when it's hungry.”

Jin stopped beside the side door. Inside the yard, the last customers were arguing over which voice had belonged to the rattlecat.

Merrit looked past Nell at him.

“You. Tell her it was a successful evening.”

Jin held up his torn sleeve.

Someone tried the rattlecat's laugh. A dozen people answered him, lighthearted now that they could go home.

Nell set her bundle down, took Merrit's wrist and lowered his hand until the keys rested on the door ledge.

“Pay someone else,” she said.

Merrit's mouth worked. Nothing useful came out of it.

She picked up her bundle and came out to Jin and Lark.

“Keys handed over,” she said. Her breath came out a little unevenly. “What?”

Jin showed her the clasp.

“Can it hold a charge if the hinge is broken?”

“In the housing. Not as a collar.”

She set her bundle down and took it.

From the yard, she fetched the little practice sack she'd used earlier. She pressed the clasp between her palm and the sack, then caught its short fall in the stance she'd taught him.

A bronze line formed beneath her heel.

The metal warmed. She gave him back the damaged housing, leaving the practice sack on its hook. The hinge still hung open.

“That's all I'd trust it with,” she said. “Don't put it around anything.”

“Not the plan.”

He explained that he wanted to keep the force from his own arrival for an instant instead of losing it through the brace.

Nell looked at Lark.

“Does he always try to repair a cart while riding it downhill?”

“Usually there are witnesses.”

They went into the empty yard. Jin walked a three-stride line from a pale flagstone to the practice post. It replaced the ring pair he'd used at the show. He recorded no second branch.

Copied text, plainly: it came from the page the author publishes on, without permission.

He put the warm clasp against his palm and selected the offered synthesis.

The bronze glow climbed his fingers. The clasp broke into light and vanished.

The new route trace went with it.

Jin looked at the bare flagstone.

“Again?” Nell asked.

He walked the three strides once more.

At the start, he selected the new mode. He drove forward, reached the post and held the last part of the rush through his planted heel.

His hand struck the padding.

The post cracked against its ground brace.

He'd expected the force to go away.

It went through his arm instead.

Pain flashed up the wrist. He pulled back, shaking his hand.

Nell caught it before he tried again.

“Straight.”

She moved his wrist a little.

“There. Your hand isn't a hinge.”

Lark inspected the post.

“That wasn't the sack trick.”

“No.”

Jin tried to call up the route again.

Only the start remained. The released trace was gone.

He waited out the shared recovery, walked the line again and hit the pad with the heel of his hand, wrist straight this time.

The post jumped in its socket.

His arm stayed where it belonged.

He grinned so widely Nell began laughing.

“There,” she said. “Now learn to miss without breaking yourself.”

He missed deliberately on the next attempt.

The force escaped past the post. His shoulder carried forward, dragging him a step out of balance. The used trace vanished just as it had on a hit.

Lark caught his sleeve.

On the next run, Jin held the contact too long.

The heartbeat passed. The saved rush sank through his heel in the ordinary brace. When he punched, there was only his own arm behind it.

Nell tapped the post.

“It won't wait for you.”

“People keep telling me that.”

He waited out the recovery before trying again. This time he watched the distance instead of the glow. He walked the line afresh, landed and struck before the brace ebbed. The trace vanished.

“Very impressive. For the post,” Lark said.

Jin laughed, breathing hard.

After thanking Nell, he left the tail fan, knife, pin and cage at the inn. His phone went into the zipped shopping bag, and he crossed home.

The kitchen clock had gone past two. He cleaned the shallow cut, put a dressing over it and changed his ruined shirt, keeping the light low.

In his apartment he recorded three new strides from the kitchen threshold to the hanging training pad. He'd used up the native path; this was different ground.

No bronze field rose under his heel.

He chose Impact Hitch anyway.

Three strides. Heel down. Palm forward.

The pad slammed against its wall backing with a crack that made him flinch.

The force had followed him home.

From the living room came a muffled curse.

Theo appeared with a sofa cushion clutched against his chest. His hair was flattened on one side. He looked at the kitchen clock with the personal hostility it deserved.

He looked at the pad swinging below the old exercise bracket.

Then at Jin.

“Please tell me that's the lesson.”