The Touchstone Trilogy by Andrea K. Höst

to practical experiments in a different part of the KOTIS building: a huge, reinforced room with observation windows and massive blocks of greenish metal in a row from small to large.  Test Room 1.
    First 'they' (voices in my head of people I'd never met) had me stand in the centre of the room and told me to try to project illusions or teleport or move a little box or do anything at all.  I couldn't.  I felt a complete dick.
    Then they sent in a Setari.  He was about twenty-five, reminded me strikingly of Johnny Depp, and had the nicest smile I've ever seen.  Ever.  He told me his name was Maze (or Mase, maybe – all the Taren words I write down are serious guesses as to spelling – the alphabet doesn't quite correlate to the letters I'm used to).  He lifted each of the metal blocks in turn using telekinesis, though he was only able to make it halfway through the row.  Then he had me stand next to him, and told me to do exactly what I did when Nenna jumped us.  I told him I didn't do anything, just stood there while she held on to my hand, and he told me to do that then, and held on to my hand while I tried not to look incredibly embarrassed, or to think how much Nenna would want to be in my place.
    Maze began lifting the blocks again.  And made it about two thirds through them, and was quite wide-eyed by the time he was done.  I would be too, since the last few blocks were bigger than school demountables.  They brought a different Setari in, a very beautiful woman around the same age, her hair in a long braid.  Her name was Zee, and she did the same thing, except she started out wide-eyed.
    After this was endless, boring variations of hand-holding and block-lifting.  They found that whatever it is I'm doing keeps working for a little while, even if they let go of my hand, and decided I'm a new ability: a magnifier or an amplifier.  Not nearly as fun as having psychic abilities of my own, but I guess it's more good than bad that they were all excited and disconcerted.  Back in my room now; time for kindergarten.
    Tuesday, January 8
    Suckitudinous
    They decided to expand my interface.  Apparently all the Setari have an interface network all over their bodies, instead of just on one side of their head, because it increases their link to the Ena and thus their strength.  They gave me a bunch of 'hypoinjections' – even in the soles of my feet! – and then told me what they'd done.  And then switched off my interface so that even my language tool went away.
    Tare nearly had a Casszilla incident.  They could have at least pretended to ask.  I went hot and dizzy and said really rude, overloud things in English and only just stopped myself from shouting because I had to work at not crying in front of them.  This was horrible enough the first time. 
    Friday, January 11
    O.o
    Cannot begin to describe how awful I feel.  Contemplating vengeance of the direst sort.
    Monday, January 14
    For the ones that are still alive
    Well, they nearly killed me this time.  I've been in the infirmary for the past few days on life support.  My expanded interface really expanded and I started having convulsions.  Apparently.  I don't remember too much of it.
    I still feel awful; I can barely sit up to write this.  It'll be a few days before I'm anywhere close to not-ill. 
    Friday, January 18
    Apologies
    Nenna sent me an email.  She sent it a couple of days ago but my interface hasn't been on.  And when they turned it on, they only gave me my language tool, kindergarten and bare-bones basic room functions.  Ista Tremmar tells me that I'll be given access back after further assessment, and that I can write to Nenna, but I can't explain anything to her, or tell her much about what it's like here.  Then she gave me a big file of rules to read, but my head wouldn't be up to it even if it was in English.  The interface has stopped expanding but I'm still horribly headachy.
    Anyway, Nenna doesn't hate me.  She apologised