Soren did not take me to a formal training space.
He took me to the library.
It was a long room on the ground floor of the west wing, lined floor to ceiling with books that had the specific density of a collection assembled over generations rather than purchased all at once. The smell of it was old paper and cedar oil and the particular stillness of a room that had absorbed a great deal of thinking over a long time.
He stood in the center of it and looked at me.
"Sit down," he said.
I sat on the floor. Not in a chair. The floor felt right. Something about needing the ground directly under me.
He sat across from me.
Between us, maybe four feet of library floor.
"The first thing you need to understand," he said, "is that the Vayne ability is not something you do to a bond. It is some
