Fifteen excruciating minutes passed. Nell eventually closed her eyes and allowed her head to loll forward. A sharp creak from behind and above her made her jump to attention, and she turned around to see Seer walking down the stairs. There were several large rolls of papers under his arms.
Nell followed him with her gaze. He sat down across from her and rolled out the papers. They were blank, Nell's peripheral vision told her. She was focused on Seer.
"You make things," he said.
Nell nodded. "That's my exact job description, yes."
"You make weapons of mass destruction?"
"Sometimes."
He thrust a charcoal pencil at her (why this particular instrument Nell did not know) and commanded, "Design one."
"Can't," Nell said honestly.
He replied coldly, "Because you'd rather get yourself killed?"
"Because my power doesn't work until I start making something. I pretty much need to be holding tools," Nell complained.
"No," he said simply. "You're lying."
She pleaded, "I would be happy to build you something--anything--but I can't design it unless I'm actually, you know, building it."
"Bullshit," Seer growled. Nell fought hard not to turn to her right to look when a guard cleared his throat loudly. Seer's lips twisted back from his teeth and he threw up an illusion of a monster--something gray and rotting from the outside in. For Nell, the vision faded as quickly as it had set in, but the guard seemed to still be under the spell.