*****
The following weeks entailed classes with both Marcus at the castle and Alexander at the Temple (with Marcus always managing to find some reason to be in the Spirit Temple at the same time).
The lessons couldn’t have been more different. Marcus was prescriptive and controlling, trying to force Anita to imitate the way he did things, whereas Alexander let Anita find her own way, there only to guide her if she needed him. Anita left Marcus’ lessons feeling frustrated and exhausted, and usually wanting to hit him. On the other hand, she left Alexander’s lessons feeling drained, but somehow liberated and content. They found several more places in her mind during their lessons, including the boat she had visited with Cleo, which Alexander said was a place that contained a good mix of Mind, Body and Spirit, so it made sense that Cleo and Anita would have ended up there. They also found a waterfall that Alexander said was full of Spirit, as well as a stable with a beautiful chestnut mare that was a mixture of Body and Spirit, but Alexander was convinced Anita had a Mind dominated place somewhere in her head, and it was only a matter of time before they found it. There had been no sign of the cylinder in any of the places they’d found so far, and secretly, Alexander suspected the cylinder was hiding in a Mind place; it would be the most difficult place to banish it from. He thought again how skilled the person who’d planted it must have been.
Of course, Anita didn’t tell Marcus about her success in the Spirit sessions; her Mind sessions were going so badly, and Marcus was always very glad to hear that Alexander’s lessons had not gone well either. ‘Maybe there’s a reason only the Descendants are taught all the skills to such a high level after all,’ he said pompously, after another Mind lesson had gone disastrously.
‘Yes, maybe,’ Anita had agreed sincerely, inwardly smirking.
As the weeks went on, two things became clear. Firstly, that Marcus and Anita were not going to get anywhere with their Mind lessons, and if they wanted to continue their relationship, it would be a good idea to stop trying, and secondly, that the Mind place in Anita’s head was exceedingly elusive, so Alexander decided to stop trying to find it for a while and move on to work on other skills, specifically, how to hide energy.
The conversation with Marcus had not gone well. At first he took it as an affront to his teaching skills, then switched tack to blame her lack of progress on all the time Anita was spending with Alexander. She eventually managed to bring Marcus round, by reassuring him it was nothing to do with his teaching skills. She’d said she was naturally pre-disposed towards Spirit and Body skills, and was useless at Mind, and it was always good to know when to stop flogging a dead horse. Anita had sealed the deal though, when she’d said that the main reason she wanted to stop lessons with Marcus was so that they could spend more time together as a couple, and not as teacher and pupil. Maybe she was better at Mind skills than she let on, she’d thought, as he had softened.
Marcus had liked this very much, and as he was getting bored of teaching Anita anyway, especially as she never seemed to get any better, he finally relented. However, it was a much harder sell to convince Marcus that he should not be present for her future meditations with Alexander. It had shocked Anita a bit to see him act so much like a spoilt child as she’d told him. She hadn’t quite believed the warnings about Marcus’ possessiveness, but when she saw it with her own eyes, she began to wonder what she’d got herself into. She had, again, managed to avoid a serious argument with a bit of flattery and a good measure of flirting.
‘It’s not that I don’t want you there,’ she had said, sitting on his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck, ‘it’s that we’re working on hiding energy next, and when I know you’re around, my energy soars. It’s impossible to control,’ she’d said, before playfully biting his ear lobe. It may not have placated Marcus entirely, but it had certainly distracted him. He had thrown her back onto the bed in retaliation, climbed on top of her and pinned her arms above her head.
‘Fine,’ he’d said sulkily, ‘I won’t come to your lessons.’
‘You promise?’ she matched his tone, looking up at him through her lashes.
‘I suppose so,’ he said, before leaning down, running the tip of his nose down the length of hers and roguishly kissing her lips.