“Then why not name them Staring stones then? The word leering has other meanings.”

“Such as?”

“I do not want to discuss it.”

“Why? Are you too proud to tell me?”

“The connotation – what it represents – is not modest.”

“What do you mean?”

He was getting even more impatient. His eyes blazed with anger. “Words have specific meanings, yet they can have multiple meanings. The word ‘leer’ is to stare at. But it also means to stare at someone in a certain way.”

She looked at him pointedly, raising her eyebrows to ask the question.

His expression clouded over, as if he were nearly frantic with discomfort. His hands clenched in his lap. “I should not be discussing this with you like this.”

She folded another linen into a padded square and pressed it against his wound. With a long length of linen, she secured it to his head and then tied off the knot.

“What a riddle you are,” she said with contempt. “Most learners are. You study the true meaning of words and how to engrave them. How to use them. How to understand them. Yet you keep that knowledge to yourselves and then get proud when someone like me gets it wrong. Do you think that because I am a wretched, I cannot understand difficult things?”

“No, that is not it.”

“Then why not tell me? If I do not understand, then you can mock me. But why withhold it?”

“Because I am not comfor…because it has to do with the way that some men look at women. A leer is not a flattering look. It is not a look of love.” His hands were trembling. “It is not a look of respect. I have seen this look and when you see it, you will know it. I have seen it in wretcheds and I have seen it in knights.” He stood, clenching and unclenching his hands, his thoughts visibly troubling him. “The stone carvings are merely emblems. Their proper name is gargouelle.”

Lia shook her head, confused. “I do not know that word…”

“No, of course you do not. Gargouelle is from another language, the Dahomeyjan word for ‘throat.’ If you ponder it, maybe you will see why they are named such. Most wretcheds do not know the language of Dahomey exists let alone how to pronounce it properly.”

“You said they were emblems. Explain that word.”

“An emblem is used to represent something else. The carvings are an emblem of the power of the Medium inside us. They bear the face of man – or woman or beast – to show that the link to the power of the Medium is within us. In both of us. You are not bringing fire out of the stone. The stone helps you bring the fire out of yourself. They are powerful emblems – and should not be misunderstood, misused, or mispronounced.”

Something in his words caused heat to rush through her. They were exciting words and thrilled her. A great deep thought brushed against her mind, so large she couldn’t feel the edges of it. That somehow, the ability to cause fire, or water, or plague, or even life slept inside of her, not the stone.

“What you are saying,” she said in a near-whisper, “is that I do not really need the Leering to make fire.”

“No, no. That is a twisted understanding. For you see, you have no control over that. It is the tragedy of your state. Your ability to use the Medium is an inheritance. It is a result of who your parents were, not you. Who your grandparents were, not you. Who your ancestors were back to the original fathers. Not you.”

Lia glanced over at Sowe, who stared at them, her hands idle on the mortar and pestle. She lowered her gaze and started crushing the seeds again. “So even if I did become a learner, it does not mean that it would be easy to practice it. Someone born from a weak lineage would not…”

“…Be able to warm a cup of water,” he replied. “No matter how hard they studied. As a wretched, you will never know your full potential until you know your parentage. Learners spend a great deal of time learning who their forbearers are to understand how their gifts have mingled and been passed along to them.”

Lia wanted to ask what it meant that she was able to do something that some learners could not, when a heavy knock sounded at the kitchen door, startling them.

The wounded young man started for the ladder to the loft, but Lia caught his wrist. “There are windows. You will be seen. There, behind the changing screen!”

He rushed to the wooden screen beneath the loft. She could see part of his boots in the gap beneath the screen and cursed herself. Another heavy knock sounded and she crossed the kitchen to the door.