It's a little like stretching muscles you haven't used in a while. The movement is stiff at first, awkward as you get reacquainted with that part of yourself. But Wilhelm is starting to remember how it goes.

Holding the flame in his mind, he wills it to stay between his hands as he copies Istredd's position. The fact that nothing has gone catastrophically wrong in the last five minutes has, in fact, propped his confidence up a bit. With a slow breath in, he tries to stretch the flame out. It grows with the movement of his hand — and then slowly dwindles again as his palms gravitate toward each other.

He practices this a few more times, eyes flicking toward Istredd to seek feedback. On the next cycle of stoking and suffocating the fire, it flares up bigger than he expected, and his hands jerk away reflexively. Panic leaps into his expression.

"Fuck."

But the flame just tumbles harmlessly through the air like a tire spinning through mud. When he sees that, the tension trickles out of him.