Runa raised her eyebrows. “Funny. I thought I was the strongest one here.”

This made Tadg cross his arms—and Barclay snort. Obviously Runa was right.

“You can use your water Lore by itself,” Runa said, “but you can’t use your electric Lore without something to conduct it. I want you to work on conjuring sparks without water or metal. Try to start with your fingers. Position them like this.” She pointed her index fingers at each other, with a small gap between them. “See if you can—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Tadg stood up and trudged to the opposite end of the Bewlah to practice.

“Just because I’ve known him since before he could walk doesn’t mean he gets to talk to me like that.” Runa shook her head and turned to Barclay. “And you. You have a slightly different task. You need to work on a sense of control. That way you’ll be able to stop your Lore before things get out of hand like they did today.”

“But wind is wild.” Barclay realized he’d argued with her almost as rudely as Tadg, and Barclay didn’t normally talk back to grown-ups. “I mean—I don’t think wind can be controlled. It’s not like light or water or ice.”

“All Lore Keepers can learn to control their Lore. It just takes practice.” Runa peered around the ship and scooped up a loose bottle cap from the deck. She handed it to him. “Take this. See if you can suspend it over your hand, using wind to keep it in place.”

“B-but wind doesn’t just stay still,” Barclay sputtered. “There’s no way I can do that!”

“Would I give you an impossible assignment?” Runa asked him pointedly.

“No, but—”

“Would I give you an assignment I didn’t think you could handle?”

Barclay sighed. “No.”

“Then get to work. The storm is coming soon.”

Above, the clouds had darkened from gray to deep purple, like one big bruise across the sky. And the waves around them had gone choppy and jagged.

Frustrated before he’d even begun, Barclay slinked to the upper deck, where Edwyn was fast asleep on a wooden bench beneath a wool blanket. Clearly the run-in with the Sleábeaks had tired him out.

Barclay squeezed the cap in his fist. He still thought wind Lore was too wild to control, but if it could be controlled, then Knunx deserved to be angry with him. He was a terrible excuse for a Guardian apprentice—or for any sort of Lore Keeper, really.

He peeked over his shoulder to where Viola and Tadg were practicing. Viola had managed to grow her Lore from a beam to a small dome of light, and sparks already crackled between Tadg’s fingertips.

Barclay turned back around and stared at Root, who had joined him on the top deck. “Do you think I can do this?” he asked nervously.