The whole class was in uproar at Rae's seemingly impossible achievement, but finally professor Sampson worked to calm everyone down.

  “Right! Now everyone knows it's possible, you have another 55 minutes to see if you can manage something similar.

  That includes you Miss Gromwin. Lets see you do it again if you can, maybe this time without the amateur dramatics. Heh?”

  Rae blushed and nodded her head and grinned at Sam, who grinned back and gave her a thumbs up.

  Having helped Rae Sam thought it was time to give the test a whirl herself.

  She focused on the tip of the candle and pushed her senses trying to feel the energy in the air.

  It was much fainter than she had imagined it would be and it took a lot of effort to agitate the air just enough that it ignited the tip of the candle. But after ten minutes of intense focus it flickered into life.

  Nothing like as large an initial flame as her friend had been able to achieve, but she had succeeded.

  Sam turned to the water. She couldn't remember what the professor had said about this one, but it seemed to her that if she pulled the heat and energy from the water she could feed it to the candle to get rid of the excess energy.

  She felt for the heat and energy of the water, it was easier than the candle as it was denser and contained within the walls of the glass.

  Sam pulled the energy from the water, temporarily absorbing it into her pool of essence and felt the water slowly freeze. When she felt the energy build up Sam fed the added energy back into the candle.

  The flame that had steadied to about an inch or more suddenly burst up to a massive foot high gout of flame that shot into the air.

  Sam sat back in shock and professor Sampson sat upright and was about to douse the inferno when the much shortened candle flickered back to how it had been before the influx of energy.

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  Somewhat shaken by the event she too received the fish eye from the professor as her pyrotechnics abruptly caused quite a stir amongst the students.

  With not more than ten minutes to go Sam thought about the windmill.

  “Hmm.. condensed air just in front of the windmill. Right.. lord how do I do this?.”

  She had never done anything like this before and gave it some thought before she gave it a go.

  Sam tried to sense the air behind the windmill like she had with the candle, again very faint, but it was definitely there.

  Sam didn't want to agitate it this time though, she wanted it condensed.

  Sam considered how best to achieve her desired goal. What if she thought of the air being squeezed lightly together between her hands like a snow ball.

  Then just open her hands with her palms facing the windmill and push the condensed energy towards the cheap plastic toy.?

  Yeah, that seemed about right.

  Sam slowly forced the air between her hands closer together, condensing it just a little.

  The thought of a clapping sound entered her mind. even mundanes could condense air, it should be easy.

  Sam felt the air pushing back, trying to escape so she let go and opened her hands as if to push the air towards the windmill.

  There was a loud pop! Then Sam felt her hands being pushed back and the windmill shoot forward into the air over the students in front of her and landing about 10 metres away.

  She looked agog at Rae, who looked back with wide eyed shock then snickered at her.

  The professor wearily got up and retrieved the windmill and placed it back on Sam's desk.

  Sam looked at It. The poor toy was a mangled wreck! Sam blushed as the professor looked her in the eye and growled.

  “A word, after class?” Sam looked down guiltily and nodded. “Yes professor Sampson.”

  The professor looked at the glass of ice and the dramatically shrunken candle and nodded as she went to sit back down.

  Sam heard murmurs behind her and wondered disconsolately what they were saying.

  Sam sat there as the rest of the class made for the exit. Rae gave her a hug and said the three would wait for her outside.

  Sam smiled, trying to portray a look of confidence and told her she would see them soon.

  As Rae walked out of the hall professor Sampson stood up and walked towards Sam.

  “Never in all my years have I seen such a display from a first year in their first lesson.”

  Sam hung her head and thought about what to say in response.

  “I.. er..”

  “Miss Gromwin seemed to be under the impression her remarkable feat of pyrotechnics was down to you! Could you tell me how exactly?”

  Sheesh!

  “H.U.D! What should I say?”

  THE TRUTH?