"I beg to differ." I was pretty sure I hadn't hallucinated that house burning down. I mean stranger things had happened, but two other people had been there. So either we'd all lost our minds, or I really had burned something down. I was going with the latter.
"You can beg all you want," Tommy said. "But ain't gonna change facts."
"Are you kidding? I was there, Tommy. I saw with my own eyes. Kabita was there. Haakon. They saw it too."
"Well, sure," Tommy said with a nod. "But they only saw part of it."
"What you mean?"
"Well." He squinted up at the sky, his forehead puckered in thought. "What they didn't see was you channeling Water until you nearly gave yourself hypothermia. Then, and only then, did you start burning things down. Bet that was a sight."
I stared at him for a moment. He was right. I'd worn myself out with the Water before I'd tried channeling Fire. By then I'd been so cold, I could hardly focus, and the Fire took over. I'd been too tired to control it. Too exhausted to focus. "How do you know what happened?"
He snorted, clearly amused by the question. "Ain't lived this long for nothing, girl."
"So, we're going to work on Water, then." Might as well resign myself to my fate.
He looked down at the dry earth and grinned. "Lawn could use some."
No kidding.
"Tell me about this Haakon fellow."
I paused, spoon halfway to my mouth. "Not much to tell." I shoveled in the stew and chomped blissfully. I wasn't really a stew person, but Tommy's was the stuff of legends. It was the best venison stew I'd ever tasted. It was the only venison stew I'd ever tasted, come to that.
Tommy simply raised an eyebrow as he chewed. I cleared my throat and tugged the rough wool blanket tighter around me. I was still bone-cold from the last two hours of exercises. Tommy could be a brutal taskmaster.
"Fine," I said. "According to Eddie, his name is Haakon Airik Magnussen. Once upon a time he was a Viking." I took another bite and nearly moaned as heat spread through my chilled body.
Tommy's brow went a little higher, but he still didn't say anything. I snagged another biscuit off the plate in the middle of the table. Anything to delay the inevitable. Tommy waited.
I sighed. "He's a Sunwalker. Like Jack."
Tommy made a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a snort. I wasn't sure what it meant, so I ignored him and munched on my biscuit.
"I know what you want me to say," I said finally.
Tommy said nothing, just gave me a look and kept eating. Tommy could say a whole lot without saying anything at all.
"You want me to admit I'm a Sunwalker too." I stabbed viciously at a piece of potato.
"Do I?"
"Everyone else does."
"Do they?"
I gave irritated growl. "Everyone says I'm a Sunwalker," I snapped. "Jack. Darroch."
"Ah, yes. Brent Darroch is exactly the sort of man you should listen to." His sarcasm was not lost on me.
"What about Jack? He wouldn't lie to me."
"No. But he sees what he wishes to see."
"Are you saying I'm not a Sunwalker?" Because if he was, he was just about the first person to say so.
"Didn't say that."
My heart sank. "So, I am one."
"Didn't say that either."
I wanted to scream in frustration. It was a regular state of affairs with Tommy. Seriously, he had the enigma thing down pat. "What am I then?"
"Who do you think you are?" He didn't say it a confrontational way. More like in a vaguely interested way, as if I was some sort of scientific experiment. Okay, that wasn't fair. Tommy wasn't like that. But still, it didn't seem like he was invested in my answer, only curious to see what I would come up with.
"I don't know," I said finally.
"That's the smartest thing I've ever heard you say." He stood up and began clearing the dishes from the table. "Now, let's go practice."
"Again?" Every muscle in my body already ached, my brain was exhausted, and I was only just recovering from the cold. I didn't think I could take much more.
"Sun's not down yet," he said. "Plenty of time left."
I groaned. It would be a miracle if I made it through the day alive.
Chapter Eighteen
Three days went by with no word of Alister. Wherever he was, he was definitely keeping a low profile. In the meantime, Tommy was beating the proverbial shit out of me with his exercise drills. I didn't know that I was getting any better at controlling Water, but I hadn't frozen myself to death again. I supposed that was a good sign.
From dawn until dusk, and even sometimes well into the night, Tommy had me calling my powers. Sometimes he'd have me use one until I'd nearly exhausted it. Sometimes he'd ask me to bounce back and forth between different powers or use two of them together. Other times he had me call them all at once, weaving them together into one powerful weapon. Or at least, that was the goal. I'd yet to succeed even once at that one.