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wall and the mansion's west face in shadow.
He didn't see any doors or gates, any more than he had two nights before. The garden wall was solid brick.
He looked up at the top, a foot or two over his head.
He couldn't climb that. The brick was smooth and solidly mortared; he couldn't find toeholds or fingerholds in
the dark. He could call for help and hope a warlock heard him and helped him over the wall before that mob
out front heard him and came to investigate.
Or maybe he could fly over it. He was a warlock, and the power was there inside him, eager to be used.
Just thinking about it made it surge up, ready and waiting; he could feel it, could almost see it.
But how did one fly? He had seen Rudhira and the others do it often enough, but he hadn't really observed it.
Thinking that, he became consciously aware for the first time that he could perceive things he hadn't before,
that he could use his magic to sense things-it wasn't seeing, and it wasn't feeling, but it was almost both. He
realized this must be what Sheila had meant when she talked about studying Thellesh's injuries with
something that wasn't witch sight.
He could feel/see the bricks that made up the wall, the mortar that held them together, the grainy texture of
the mortar, the smooth glaze on the bricks ...
But it was dark, and he wasn't touching the wall; his hands were at his sides.
He blinked, and the perception faded slightly.
He didn't need to know how the wall was put together, he just needed to get over it. He still couldn't sense
any toeholds, even with this new ability.
He turned his attention to himself, to see whether he could figure out how to fly. It should be easy-just lift
himself off the ground. He had experimented with his magic a little in secret, earlier in the day, and he could
move small objects around, but he hadn't tried lifting himself.
It wasn't as easy.
It wasn't so much the weight, although he had never tried lifting anything even close to his own size; instead,
he realized, it was because he couldn't sense a relationship between himself and the object he was trying to
move.
That was how a warlock moved things. He had done it without understanding it before, without being aware of
how he was doing it, but now he saw it clearly. His new sense showed him the relationship in space between
himself and the object he wanted to affect, and then he manipulated that relationship-warlockry was all a
matter of using this new sense to find the magical connections between himself and the rest of the World,
and then forcing them to change. He had caught that cruet by blocking its connection to the floor.
But finding the magical connections between himself and himself didn't seem to work.
Rudhira and the others had done it, though. There had to be a way.
He studied himself with his newly recognized warlock sight, and finally figured out what he would have to do.
In order to fly, Hanner saw, a warlock didn't move himself; he moved the rest of the World.
Hanner reached out and tried to do that, to move the street and wall away-and caught himself just before he
fell over backward.
He straightened up, frowned, looked down at his feet, and tried again, concentrating on pressing the ground
away from the soles of his sandals.
He rose unsteadily for an inch or two, then wobbled and started to fall backward. Again, he used his
warlockry to catch himself.
He could catch himself easily enough, he thought. It was annoying; it was as if his magic worked better when
he didn't think about it.
But if he didn't think about it, he couldn't fly!
He heard footsteps and turned to see a patrolling guardsman marching toward him. Quickly he tugged up his
tunic and untied his breeches, to provide the obvious excuse for why someone was standing inches from a
blank wall at night.
"Hai!" the soldier called. "Go find somewhere better!"
"Sorry!" Hanner called, retying his breeches. "Drank too much ale at supper."
"Well, get rid of it somewhere else."
"Yes, sir."
He hesitated, then took a step toward Merchant Avenue. The guardsman marched on.
Hanner turned back to the wall, studying it with his warlock sense, wondering whether he could somehow
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