[Her touch startles him a little, lost in thought and his own wretched self-criticism- or listening for those voices again, perhaps. He lowers his hands and shakes his head.]

I don't think so. It's... one of those all-or-nothing powers. Practicing means using it, and using it... I don't know.

[That's the part that scares him. That initial plunge, allowing it to be a part of him. To cave to its quiet demands of him and place it upon his finger. To be "crowned", and... probably let it kill him, too, like all those who came before him. And that must be a long ways off, even if he did it now, but fear and logic very rarely cohabitate.]