by Nika Gray
“Are you sure about this?” Kelly asked for the hundredth time.
“Yes, Kelly,” I said exasperated.
“I saw the way Professor Krysz does his classes. If the class sees my fire as being separate from the spell or hex, I cast and not coming from the conduit ring, I’m fucked, right?”
I wasn't understanding Kelly's reluctance. She wasn't thrilled about my plan and I’d forced her hand by making her feel guilty about not helping me. I felt bad. Sort of. I’d interrupted her and Marcus’s time together, no doubt. But the next battle magic class was early the next morning and I was desperate. I had no idea where Fergus was, where he lived, or if there was anyone else I could ask for help.
I didn't know Alexis well enough and, in any case, she wore me out with all her questions about my past. For now, all I had was Kelly.
“Please, Kelly,” I said. “I know you wanted to spend time with Marcus and I really appreciate your ditching him for me. I need to keep my cover intact while your dad helps me find out who's after me.”
Kelly waved me off, annoyed at me.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” She opened the door to Bloodstyne Hall.
It wasn’t that late out, but the main quad was empty.
“There aren't any evening classes?” I asked.
Kelly shook her head no.
“Shouldn’t be we be getting trained to protect ourselves at night? Don't you think most attacks by the Fae would happen at night?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, it’ll happen. The second-year battle lasts throughout the night.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said as we entered the main battle hall auditorium.
Kelly said some words under her breath and released sprites that illuminated a small portion of the vast space. They reminded me a little of lightning bugs. I watched closely as she closed her eyes and focused. Then she swung her arms into the shape of a square. Light flashed along the shape she’d made and then a portal opened up into a world that shimmered.
She grabbed the top and bottom edges of the portal and stretched the shape enough for us to walk through. It felt weird passing through the thin membrane of the two dimensions. As I stepped across the threshold, I felt as if I was in a bubble.
“What can we do and not do in this mirror world?” I asked.
“Everything’s the same, just less so,” she explained. “If I hit you with a spell, it's going to only hurt about one percent of what it would usually be like.”
“Will you hit me with a spell then?” I asked.
Kelly looked uncomfortable. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” I assured her. “I need to know.”
She murmured something and then suddenly slung out her arm. An unseen force hit me on the shoulder. My body snapped back from the impact, but the hit itself wasn’t too bad.
“That didn’t hurt much. What do I do now?” I asked.
“Say LYRICA DANIC POTANI. That was the first spell Professor Krysz taught us. Focus on the part of the opponent’s body you want to hit.”
I stood opposite her and said the spell under my breath.
“Now flick your wrist.”
I did as she did.
“You’re snapping the spell to the part of the body you’re aiming to hit.”
I imagined hitting her shoulder. “LYRICA DANIC POTANI,” I muttered and flicked the wrist of my right hand, the three fingers attached to the conduit ring.
A fiery, red ball sailed towards her.
Kelly screamed and jumped away from the red ball of flame. “I don't want to get hit by mage fire!”
“Sorry!” I winced. “Was that what that was?”
“I've never seen it red before, but yeah. I mean what else could it be?” she asked.
“Was that spell supposed to conjure mage fire?”
“No,” she shook her head. “It’s a forcefield spell. Like an invisible fist punching you.”
I groaned and tried not to hyperventilate. “How in the hell am I gonna pass as one of you mages if I can't hide my magic?” I cried out.
“Is there a way that you could make the magic invisible?” she asked.
“How can I make something invisible with mage magic?” I asked.
We stood there quietly thinking for a moment. Then Kelly began talking as if to herself. “All magic is energy. All spells are intention. All curses are desire. All hexes are emotion.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“It’s from the Primer of Magic,” she said dismissively, still thinking. “We all learned it in grade school.”
“Okay,” she turned back to me. “What if you say the spell and flick your wrist, but also hold the intention of it not being seen by anyone?”
“Intention? Really? Does that work?”
“Intention is everything in spellwork,” she said. “I've seen spells before that have invisibility intentions on them and they do work. But who knows if it's gonna work with your magic?”
I nodded and said the spell again. I flicked my wrist, but this time I imagined the red ball of flame completely see-through.
No fire ball this time. I jumped up and down in excitement and lost concentration. The fire flickered in the moment I wasn’t thinking about invisibility. Kelly ducked away from it again and clapped.
“I could feel the heat on that one. If you’d hit me, I think I’d be in pain.”
“I thought in this mirror world we aren’t supposed to get hurt?” I asked.
Kelly frowned. “Yeah, I shouldn't be feeling that kind heat in here.” Then she shrugged. “What do I know? I’m a first-year too, remember? I don’t have all the answers.”
“Right,” I nodded, not feeling at all comforted by her words.
“Let's try it again,” she said. “This time focus and don't get excited when it actually works. Remember you’re intending it to happen, so you can’t doubt it, because that lessens your intention and weakens the spell. Intention and expectation go hand in hand in spellwork.”
“Really?” I asked. “Where did you learn that?”
“Grade school,” she replied as she got ready for my next attempt.
I said the words again, this time closing my eyes and imagining Kelly falling back from an unseen force hitting her shoulder. I opened my eyes and flicked the spell at her. This time it stayed invisible.
She sidestepped away from it, clapping again. “Bravo!”
“If it’s invisible how do you know where it’s going?” I asked.
“You feel the shift in the air around you,” she explained. “You get pretty good at predicting the spell’s trajectory. The third-years supposedly have a sixth sense about them through so much practice.”
“Third year sounds so far off.”
“Let’s just focus on the now,” she sighed. “Let me teach you some spells and hexes so if you do get called on tomorrow morning you’ll have something in your arsenal and can practice hiding your magic in them.”
“Thank you so much, Kelly,” I said. “You’re literally a life saver.”
We practiced four spells and a few hexes. I became quite good at them. Kelly ducked and weaved away from me as my aim got better.
“Where's your prince charming anyway?” Kelly asked as we took a break.
“I haven't actually seen him around,” I said.
I bit my lip and the nasty voice in my head reminded me I’d told him all my secrets. I shooed it away. Fergus wouldn’t betray me. I couldn’t say why I was so sure of that, but I was.
It wasn't like we were doing anything more than having some fun, but he was serious about his magic and he wanted to know what it was that happened between us. I didn't think he would betray my confidence because that magic was tied specifically to me.
“I’ll be prepared to spar with him thanks to you,” I said.
Kelly laughed. “Don’t get too cocky. He better take it easy on you because I've seen him spar with other people and he’s brutal.”
I winced at the thought of gettin
g hit by one of his spells. I hadn't been quick enough the first time Kelly threw a hex at me and it definitely stung. I wouldn't want that pain all over my body.
“I've had enough. Let's call it a night,” I said.
“Agreed,” she said.
She swung her conduit ring again and opened the portal back into the Hall. We climbed out and the portal sizzled away. We turned toward the stairs leading to the exit and Professor Krysz stepped out of the shadows.
My first thought was that he’d seen my magic. My eyes flew to the screen behind us, but it was black.
“Ladies,” his deep voice murmured. “What are you doing in here?”
Kelly hesitated and glanced at me, so I spoke up. “I asked Kelly Hotchkiss to tutor me since I'm two weeks behind in your course,” I explained. “She showed me some of some of the spells and hexes you’d gone over so far.”
Professor Krysz didn’t reply right away. He stared at me, then looked over at Kelly.
“Does your father know you're doing this?” he asked Kelly sharply.
She stiffened at his tone. “I didn't realize the battle hall was off limits,” Kelly said.
“You think the headmaster’s daughter has special privileges?” he demanded.
Kelly shook her head. “No, professor.”
“Nobody is supposed to be here at night. Including you, Miss Hotchkiss,” Professor Krysz warned. “You should both leave. Now!”
We nodded and rushed out of there like our tails were on fire.
“Crap!” I said as soon as we were outside, catching our breath. “Kelly, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know we’d get in trouble over that.”
“I've never heard anything about the battle hall being off limits,” she said. “I'll have to ask my dad, but that was weird.”
I only hoped he hadn’t seen the beginning of our session and my fireball. I guessed if he did, I’d know it sooner than later.
Chapter 12
Sadie
A forest stood behind me as I turned to face a thin membrane made of light.
As I moved into the membrane, a crackling sound surrounded me, and bolts of magical fire hit me square in the chest.
I screamed and felt my body ripping apart down to my soul. A sucking sound obliterated my senses.
White light engulfed me.
A deep rumbling sound filled my ears.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a pinkish red-light filtering through liquid.
I floated along.
I wasn’t breathing, but that was ok.
I existed.
I was.
The floating soothed my fractured soul and the gentle rocking of the waves made me drowsy.
I wasn’t breathing, though. I couldn’t breathe.
I opened my mouth to scream and it filled with the liquid.
I sat up in my bed gasping for air. The dream had been so real I still tasted the liquid in my mouth. Beads of sweat rolled down my face. The t-shirt I wore to bed was plastered to my back. I peered into the darkness unsure of where I was.
The dorm room. Protectors Academy. Safety. I’m supposed to be here, I thought. I had no idea where that thought came from. My breath began to normalize and I laid my head back down.
After my battle magic session with Kelly, we’d headed back to the dorms discussing the professor’s weird attitude. We hadn’t made much headway in that department when we’d parted ways for the night.
I’d been exhausted from the day and after my shower I fell asleep almost immediately. The dream came out of nowhere. I couldn’t think of anything that might have prompted my subconscious to go all kooky like that on me.
I licked my lips still, tasting the strange, but somehow familiar liquid. I’d had night terrors as a kid, but this had been way more terrifying than those.
I adjusted my head on the pillow and scrunched my nose in disgust. My pillow was also totally wet from sweat.
I sat back up, flipped it over to the dry side and laid my head back down. Out of nowhere, a popping sound shattered the silence of the room. My entire body tensed in alert. Sonia and Avery were still asleep. I could hear little snores coming out of Sonia and deeper breathing from Avery.
Neither of them had made that sound. I sat back up in bed and watched as a spark of fire drifted in the middle of the room.
It moved straight down in a line, then made a right corner and another right corner. In horror, I realized Kelly had made the same kind of fire trail last night when creating a portal.
Someone was making a portal into my room. I watched in terror as the rectangle was completed. The area within it shimmered and an equally dark room appeared on the other side.
The mage in the other room stretched the edges as Kelly had done, to make the space bigger so he could walk through it. I saw his conduit ring flash.
Bile rose in my throat and my body trembled.
They had found me.
They were coming for me.
They found me! My brain screamed.
I stretched out my fingers and they turned a deep fiery red. Ripples of energy streamed from my chest, down through my arms as I clenched my fists. I concentrated like I had with Kelly in our session, making my intention what I wanted to happen.
To obliterate that portal.
I pointed at the portal with both my hands and whispered. “Close. Close. CLOSE.” I hissed the last word as red energy blasted out of my fists towards the portal.
The man on the other side screamed in pain as the blast hit him in the chest and the portal collapsed with a crackle.
Unfortunately, the fear and terror I held inside of me exploded the wall behind where the portal had been, too. Alarms screeched all up and down the hallway as mage fire ate away at the wall.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I clambered out of bed and rushed over to wake up Sonia and Avery.
“There's a fire in our room,” I yelled. “There's a fire in our room!”
I couldn’t believe they were sleeping through the alarm, but it took my shaking them to get them both of bed. Avery jerked away from me and screamed for Sonia. Sonia fell out of bed and seeing the mage fire, rushed into the bathroom.
She came out a moment later with a fire extinguisher and blasted the wall with the white foam. The fire didn’t respond.
Magic fire didn’t burn normally, apparently. Students on the other side of the hall screamed as the fire ate a massive hole in the wall. Someone yelled for Professor McKenzie, our dorm master.
What felt like hours was probably only minutes as we huddled against the coolness of the farthest window waiting for help to arrive.
I tried willing the fire away, but that didn’t work. No surprise there.
Through the hole the fire had eaten in the wall, I saw an older man running down the hall in his pajamas. His graying hair was wild, and his eyes determined as he rushed toward the fire in his bare feet. He focused his conduit ring out in front of him, his mouth constantly moving, repeating a spell.
Blue light streamed from his hand and covered the brilliant red of the fire I’d started. Finally, his blue energy overcame my magic. It took close to ten minutes for him to get it down to nothing.
We would surely have died from smoke inhalation if the fire hadn’t been magic fire. But then the fire extinguisher probably would have worked. My inability to control my magic had ruined the room. A massive hole stood where the wall had been.
I could have killed us all, I thought. I pushed the thought away. Immediately the image of the man coming through the portal invaded my mind. I pushed that one away, too.
Professor McKenzie ordered everyone out of the dorm and when we got to the Quad, lights flickered on from the neighboring dorm.
Sonya and Avery glared daggers at me. When Kyna Bloodstyne came out, they rushed to her side. The three collapsed into a group hug and then the sobbing started.
I was grateful my magic hadn’t actually hurt anyone, except hopefully the mage who’d tried to portal into my room. I looked over at my room
mates again. I was truly happy no one was hurt, but their act was a bit melodramatic.
All the students from my dorm mingled around the lawn, talking in hushed tones and hugging one another. Some were joined by friends from the dorm next to ours. I looked around for Kelly, or even Alexis, but didn’t see them and no one approached me. I hoped Fergus, or Cole, or even Declan would come over, but they were nowhere to be seen.
I stood off to the side, my arms folded around me, and waited for Headmaster Hotchkiss to come. It wasn’t a long wait.
Within fifteen minutes, he strode quickly through the quad toward us and Professor McKenzie, wearing only his robe over pajamas and what looked like his running shoes. He spoke with Professor McKenzie first and I could tell the exact moment he found out the fire started in my room. He glanced at me and waved me over.
“Sadie, come with me,” he said as he led me back inside our dorm’s vestibule for privacy.
“Tell me what happened,” he demanded.
“I woke up from a dream,” I started with a catch in my throat. “I couldn’t breathe and I woke up and saw a portal opening. They found me. They were trying to take me again and then my magic came out and it’s all my fault.” My words rushed out.
He put a hand on my shoulder and stopped me. “Take a deep breath, Sadie. Slow down. You sound like you're in shock, so take a moment and then start from the beginning,” he said in a soothing voice.
His energy flowed into my shoulder and down my back. I immediately felt peace and a sense of calm. He guided me to sit on the steps of the staircase with him.
“There now, that’s better,” he said. “Now start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
“I woke up from a bad dream,” I began. “I put my head back down on the pillow and then I heard a pop. The next thing I knew there was a little flame hovering in the middle of the air in front of the door.”
