In his writings, Moshel Atoosa’Avvah talks about walls and anchors. His techniques are built on separation, a stability of self, which I have always lacked. It felt strange to abandon his techniques, which were steeped deeply in the traditions and gathered knowledge of Semadran magic. Abandoning them felt like yet another wedge between the life I lived and the life I was expected to live. Vathorem and I drew on anything and everything we could find to build a new framework for me. We found different tools to reach the same end. Vathorem taught me much about the litanies. I learned Old Athenorkos for it, and he was thrilled to teach someone even a little bit about it. “Litanies, they’re rare,” he said one day. He sat next to me and blew the dust off the cover of a large, leather-bound book. It was hundreds of years old, the pages made of vellum instead of paper. “It would be a shame for them to die out with me.”

“You’re the only one?” I asked.

Vathorem shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. They’re rare. The woman who taught them to me, who gave me this book, she’s long gone.” He ran his hands over the cover and smiled.

“There are coppers in the City.”

“Coppers?”

“Half Semadran, half Athenorkos. I bet some of them could do it.”

“Huh. I bet that’s so. If I’m ever allowed to retire, maybe I’ll make my way to the City, seek some out. That’s enough talk; let’s get to work.”

To perform a litany, you catch attention first with a charm. Then, you sync your mind with the receiver’s. Chants in Old Athenorkos are used for this. The chants function as a way to keep yourself focused, to keep hold of yourself, while also letting someone else into you. The mantras worked well for me. It was easier to track myself when I allowed my mind only one train of thought. Vathorem taught me everything there is to know about litanies and the kind of shaping they use. They give you a measure of control over someone else. They let you guide someone’s feelings, and when you guide their emotions, you have a good chance at guiding their thoughts, too. It is a powerful and dangerous thing. He made me a true shaper before he taught me restraint, or how to catch just bare glimpses, or how to pull back my instincts. In school, they teach us that mastery is shown through restraint of a gift rather than its use. It was years before I could claim mastery, but there with Vathorem, I can say I began to understand the shape of my gift, the things it could do, the way it functioned.