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. Your normal lessonshave covered doubtless to the point of your nausea crafting missives with superviolet luxin.Had they ever.Its invisibility was why superviolet drafters were used for communications.But on top ofthat, every satrapy was also looking into ciphers and methods of stacking, twisting, and obfuscating thesuperviolet-written messages, locking the messages into fragile loops that would be broken by any butsomeone who knew the exact method to open and read them.Fun, for a while.But they d passed the funplace a long long time ago. You know what superviolet is great for? Gavin asked. Tripping people. Every girl in the classgrinned guiltily.All had done that at one time or another. No, seriously.The pranks are where you learnto apply your color in ways no one else has thought of.You have to be a little bad to make history.Sealed superviolet isn t as strong as blue or green, but it weighs almost nothing, and for Orholam s sake,it s invisible! Gavin drafted a hollow superviolet egg the size of his hand.He winced for an instant, as ifsomething was paining him. The trick with yellow, Liv, is to understand how it releases its power.So,into the middle of this egg, draft liquid yellow. He did. The important bit is to leave absolutely no airinside the container.It has to be solid. He closed it while looking at the girls, not paying attention.He djust left an air bubble in the egg.He hadn t noticed. If it s solid, totally airtight, then even if you shake it Liv raised her hand, opened her mouth, but she was too slow.Gavin shook the egg.It exploded with a blinding flash.Everyone hit the ground.Before Liv even opened her eyes, she heard Gavin laughing.Was he insane? She looked up, but his hairwasn t even ruffled. Now, Gavin said. If that egg had been made of blue luxin, when it shattered we dall have been cut to pieces.But as you all know in your heads if not in your hearts or your bodies,apparently sealed superviolet frays easily.Not that it can t be useful. With a speed and facility thatstunned Liv, he drafted another egg and filled it with liquid yellow luxin. Get up, he told the class.Ana was crying quietly.She d scraped her knee when she d fallen, and itwas bleeding.Served her right for wearing such a short skirt.The rest of the girls got up, righted theirchairs, and sat.Ana stayed on the ground. Get up, Gavin ordered her. You re going to be a drafter ina few months.You want to act like a woman? You re not even ready to act like an adult.The lash of his words hit Ana hard, but every girl in the class felt the sting.His statement was as true forLiv as it was for Ana.She looked away from Ana, realizing how easy it would have been to be in herplace right now.She felt a momentary twinge of compassion for the girl, then irritation that she wasfeeling that.Ana had made her life miserable.Gavin promptly ignored Ana.He flung a strand of superviolet skyward.It was so light, it was caught inthe wind and drifted to the west off the tower, but as long as he held the luxin open and supported it anddrafted more and more into it, he could send it higher, and he did, rapidly.Then he brought the yellowegg up to the thread of luxin, made loops to hold it on to the line, and then launched it into the air.Hisright hand snapped down with the recoil of the launch.Page 151 The egg zipped along the invisible line, curving out over the tower.At its apex, two hundred feet out, itexploded with a sharp report.Far below, Liv heard people in the yard crying out in wonder and surprise. Now, imagine I pointed that at a charging line of horses.It won t kill anyone directly, but horses don tlike having things explode in their faces any more than prissy girls do.Blanching and blushing filled the sudden, pained silence. There s a couple of other special ways you can use superviolet in dual-color drafting.Anyone? Gavinasked.Ana lifted her hand uncertainly.He nodded. For distance control? That s right.You have to leave your superviolet open, and the longer you make the line, the harder it isto control.It s like juggling when you can t see the balls.But&  He held out his hands, a swirl of colorswent through his eyes, and he was holding a red ball, a yellow ball, a green ball, a blue ball, and anorange ball.(Liv saw him wince again, as if he had a pulled muscle in his back.) Then he started juggling.The girls all of them, even Magister Goldthorn gasped.First because the properties of the ballsweren t right.Orange was slick, oily.Red was sticky.Yellow was liquid.Then, of course, because it wasa different kind of impressive to see someone juggle five of anything.Oh.Liv got it.Every ball had a very thin blue luxin shell, filled with luxin of a different color.Gavin closed his eyes and kept juggling.Impossible.Was he just showing off? No, hewas showing off,but he was also still teaching. Ah, Liv said, pleased. Someone got it, Gavin said, opening his eyes. With my eyes closed, how am I juggling? You re the Prism.You can do anything, someone mumbled. Thank you, my butt hasn t been kissed all day, but no.Did he just say that?!  You re not juggling, Liv said, recovering first.Gavin took his hands away from the twirling balls.They kept going in the same intricate pattern.Everyone tightened their eyes and saw the superviolet luxin connected in a track through the balls.Theballs were simply following the invisible track. That s right.If you give a visible reason, even if it sastounding, you can hide an invisible phenomenon right under people s noses.That is the power ofsuperviolet luxin.Tell you what, Aliviana, will you do me a favor? Sure [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]