Her mentor sighed audibly and turned to face her, speaking without removing the bandana covering her mouth. Zoe had to strain to hear it. "I've explained the Tapestry to you, right?"
Zoe shook her head, and her mentor continued, taking on the tone of both lecturer and lover. "It's a way of looking at the world. Reality, they say, is a grand tapestry. By existing, we warp it into new and beautiful patterns, and our wishes, our desires, warp it further. But it stays whole. Only an Awakened will like mine can tear it. Soon, you'll Awaken too. Do you see now why you've waited three years?"
"Yeah... I get it," she said, staring at her feet. All the times she'd pleaded and begged for her training to end, saying she was ready, and so soon after her first real failure she'd learned this. "So this is why you haven't Awakened me before now."
Her mentor laughed quietly, a startling sound; she'd rarely laughed before. "That's beyond anyone's power. Only you can decide that, and it's not a conscious choice. But the fact that you can manage such a powerful curse at fourteen is telling, regardless of how much it drains you. The point is not power. It's focus."
Zoe mulled this over, a million other questions spinning around and around in her head. Her mentor had never been this open or this clear. But before she could decide on one to ask, that muffled voice spoke again. "Even when one of my workings tears the Tapestry, it repairs itself in short order. That is why it's all subject to perception. But something has been happening lately that rips the Tapestry in two and stitches it back together with unfamiliar parts." She paused. "I think that only those there to witness it can remember what it was like before. And I think the Sidhe are involved. They're very much bound to tradition. What they did a thousand years ago, they still do today. That's why those myths and legends are still relevant."
Once again Zoe was floored, by the potential in such a power, and by the gravity of the situation. "I... see. I'll look it all up once I get some sleep." She felt rather than saw her mentor smiling, a warm, comforting feeling lined with pride. As she pushed the backpack off of the bed and laid down, she saw her mentor leaving without a word, and smiled. Zoe went to sleep scared, but content.
