He set the rings in my palm, cupping his hands about it. A shiver went through me, and he smiled. “It’s much like a rainbow is the sum of visible light. You first put in the red, then shift it to orange, then yellow, then green, and so on until you finally get all the colors singing together and they melt into a white light and the charm invokes.”

He was standing close; his warmth and the scent of coal dust and shoe polish were bringing back memories, good but uncomfortable. “Show me?” I asked, and we both looked at the rings in my hand, his cupping mine.

“Push your aura off your hand,” he said, and my head snapped up. “That’s why the circle,” he soothed. “Go on, do it.”

My face puckered up, but I imagined my aura going thin at my fingertips, peeling back from my fingers, soaking into my skin and vanishing to leave a huge gaping hole in my first line of defense. Cold pinpricks stabbed my hand. My aura wanted to return, but I held it off.

“Good.” It had been a hopeful grunt of approval, and I caught back my adrenaline before I lost control. Before me, Pierce shifted his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable as well as he removed his own aura. The rings felt unnaturally heavy in my palm, and Pierce’s loose grip around my hand, intimate.

“Now, I’m of a mind that your gargoyle, Bis, has been leading you in the practice of shifting your aura,” he said, and I nodded, nervous. “Then simply tune the entirety of it to the clearest red you can imagine.”

I met his eyes, seeing an unknown emotion. I couldn’t see my aura, but he could, and flustered, I shifted it, knowing I had it right when he nodded. “Just so,” he said. “Let a thin ribbon of it spill down into your hand. Mind you keep it a trace!” he exclaimed, and I backed off. It was hardly a whisper, but as it touched the rings nestled in my palm, I swear I heard them chime, like the ringing of a glass when you run your finger along the top. I could feel my aura like warm silk, tracing down the soft part of my arm and making a warm pool in my palm.

“You have a knack,” he prompted, clearly pleased. “But even so, there’s too much. It is an art, and you have to plan ahead such that it just fills the memory and no more.”

I licked my lips, eyeing the rings and my aura echoing from them. “How’s this?” I asked as I backed off until there was almost no “sound” at all.

“Perfect. But be of a mind that it’s harder to remove it once given. Err on the side of hunger.”