Rise of the Mage (Resurrecting Magic Book 1)

by Keary Taylor

  “Yes,” I said, wanting to bring us back to a place that wasn’t so dark. I wanted everything to go back to being light. “And they were the result of mass hysteria and superstition. They wanted something to blame for bad harvests and hard financial times. A lot of innocent people died.”

  Nathaniel’s focus returned to me. Three seconds passed, and finally he gave a little nod, but it didn’t seem like a complete act of agreement.

  He stepped forward, and gingerly, he laid the book in his arms on the desk. I recognized it then as the one from the library, the first day we had met.

  “You said you cannot read Gaelic,” he said in a low voice. He opened the book and looked down at it, gazing at the words with wonder. “But maybe you should try again.”

  “Nathaniel, I-” I began to protest. But he looked up at me and begged me with his eyes.

  So, I crossed to the desk to stand beside him. I looked down at the words, remembering the silly experience with it before, now weeks ago. I could recognize letters, as I’d concluded before, some of them were of Latin origin. But I couldn’t read any of it.

  “I haven’t learned Gaelic in the last few weeks, Nathaniel,” I said, looking over at him. He looked at my face intently, as if he were waiting for something spectacular to happen. “I still can’t read it.”

  Gently, he reached for my hand, wrapping his fingers around my wrist. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I decided I trusted him enough to humor him.

  He brought my hand forward, and gently, he set my fingertips down on the edge of the pages.

  It was as if I’d blinked, and it turned into a different book.

  One moment it was in unreadable Gaelic. The next, it was in perfect English.

  I blinked, leaning in closer to the book.

  A simple matter of will and asking, levitation is one of the simplest forms of magic.

  My eyes read the line without a second of hesitation or translation.

  I ripped my hand back from the book and took half a step back.

  Instantly, the book was once more in a language I could not read.

  The room was utterly silent. So quiet it pushed in on my ears and the only sound was my own heartbeat.

  I felt Nathaniel’s eyes on me. I felt meaning filling the air. I felt anticipation. But also, momentous confusion.

  Cautiously, I reached my hand forward again. Filled with fear and wonder, I touched the edge of the pages.

  In levitation, most users have certain affinities, whether they be metal, earth, wood, life forms, etc.

  Because it was the scientific method of proving a hypothesis, I removed my hand one last time and the words became unreadable.

  I touched the pages, and my eyes relaxed as the words became readable.

  “You can read it, too.”

  I looked up at Nathaniel and startled when he stood there with his right hand held up, his fingers generally pointed at the ceiling. And floating around his fingertips there were three paper airplanes, swirling, dipping and rising through the air. And that air around his hand had this…shimmer. Almost as if glitter floated in the air. But I couldn’t quite focus on it. And the air seemed more…golden.

  “What kind of trick is this, Nathaniel?” I asked, my words hoarse and quiet.

  I’d never seen this look in his eyes. They were filled with…excitement. And hope. He shook his head. “It’s not a trick, Margot,” he said. He waved his fingers, and the airplanes set off toward the opposite end of the solarium. Gently, they floated toward his bed, flying in a circle over it. They followed each other in a line, doing a flip in the air and then flying over to the couch, where they dipped down low, soaring beneath it, before they aimed back at Nathaniel. There, they swirled around his fingers once again before they gently floated down to the table and landed on the book. “It’s in my blood. And I believe it’s in yours, too.”

  I shook my head and took a step back. Carefully I surveyed the room for strings or wires. I didn’t understand why he was doing this. What woman has ever appreciated a magician when it came to a potential relationship? But as I looked harder and harder, I couldn’t figure out how he’d pulled that off.

  “I’m sorry, Nathaniel,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not into magic. I thought we were going to have a real conversation about what we talked about on the beach, but if you’re just going to woo me with tricks, then I’m going home.”

  I took one step toward the door, but Nathaniel grabbed a blank piece of paper from the desk and shoved it into my hands. “I am not claiming to be some cheap magician,” he said through nearly clenched teeth. “This is not a show and I haven’t spent years hiding under the covers practicing sleight of hand.”

  I met his eyes. I should have been scared. He was acting crazy. He was saying crazy things.

  But I wasn’t. And maybe it was my thundering heart. Maybe it was the ringing in my ears.

  Or maybe it was that image of the book changing in my mind.

  The words I’d read.

  “This is not a gimmick, Margot,” he said. His eyes fell to the paper. “Feel it yourself. It’s just paper. No strings. No wires or tricks.”

  I turned it over, and I saw it for myself, that it was indeed just a piece of paper.

  “Watch,” he said. He brought up his hands beneath mine, encouraging me to hold it up to nearly eye level, the piece of paper balanced flat on my palms. He lowered his hands and then laced them behind his back.

  He stared at the piece of paper, his gaze focused.

  My eyes ripped back to it when I heard it crinkle.

  My eyes grew wide as I watched it crease and fold, as if it were being manipulated by invisible hands. It changed shape before my eyes, lying in my hands. And I felt nothing. No trick wires. There was no way he could be touching it without me knowing.

  My breathing got heavier and faster.

  In a matter of seconds, I began to see a shape take form.

  In fifteen seconds, it sat there, perfect and formed.

  A paper crane.

  I was about to breathe out a disbelieving curse, when I jumped hard as the wings of the paper crane extended, and it lifted off from my palms.

  Gently, gracefully, it flapped its wings, and set flight throughout the solarium.

  I looked back at Nathaniel. The air shimmered with that gleam I couldn’t quite describe or capture with my eyes. His hand glowed faintly golden as he pointed and directed it around the space.

  “I think you could do it too, Margot,” Nathaniel said as he directed the crane back to me. My hand shook as I held it up, my palm flat. It settled back onto my hand and then was as still and innocent as any other paper crane in the world. “Because you can read the book, I think you can do it, too. I think you and I are the same.”

  “And what the hell is that supposed to be?” I asked with a shaking voice.

  “I don’t really know,” Nathaniel said, his voice little more than a whisper. He took a step closer and closer, until he stood right in front of me. His eyes went to his paper crane. “I think we might be the descendants of those who were burned at the stake for having real magic. Witch, wizard, warlock, mage. I think that we’re the blood left over of those who had abilities that got them killed.”

  Fear spiked in my blood, and I instantly recalled all the numbers he’d just told me. The witch hunts. The innocent lives lost.

  He was claiming that not all of them were so innocent.

  “Close your eyes, Margot,” Nathaniel said.

  I didn’t mean to do it, but I found my eyes closing.

  “Feel the crane in your hand,” he said. He was so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. I could feel the heat coming off of him. “Ask it to move. Will it in your mind.”

  This was crazy. Nathaniel was crazy.

  Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I’d fallen on my way to the library and hit my head. That was the only real, logical solution to what was happening.

  But I did as he asked because I wasn’t blind to
what Nathaniel had just done. And there was this feeling in my chest, one that asked me to be open.

  I felt the crane.

  I asked it to lift.

  I imagined it.

  But I still felt it on my hand. When I opened my eyes, it still sat in my palm.

  “It’s okay,” Nathaniel said with an encouraging nod. “Nothing happened the first time I tried it.”

  “You’re telling me that book taught you how to do what you just did?” I asked, because I needed more information. I needed something more solid.

  “You saw the words on the page, Margot,” Nathaniel said. His tone was rising just a little, his words coming out faster, with excitement. “Just…try again. Please.”

  I pressed my lips together and let out a hard breath through my nose. I gave him a doubtful look. But I closed my eyes. And I concentrated.

  This is crazy, this is crazy, the words ran through my head, over and over again.

  But I reached out.

  Lift.

  Float.

  Rise.

  I was filled with doubt and maybe a little fear. But I put the words out, thought them as hard as I could.

  Something tingled at the back of my neck. It penetrated into my brain. Filled my chest. Ran to my fingers.

  I’d never felt anything that felt so good.

  “Margot,” Nathaniel’s voice whispered soft and quiet, next to my ear.

  My eyes fluttered open, and I was immediately disappointed to see that the paper crane still sat in my hand.

  But as I looked up at Nathaniel, to tell him this was pointless, my eyes went to the glass walls.

  Outside, rocks and overgrown weeds, and broken roses floated in the air.

  The second I saw them, a sharp gasp stabbed into the back of my throat, and everything dropped to the ground.

  A string of curse words slipped from Nathaniel’s lips. His hands went to his hair and he started talking in a string of words that left his mouth so fast, I didn’t catch a single one.

  I stepped forward, my eyes fixed on a single rose that now lay on the ground. I pushed the door open and stepped outside.

  With trembling hands, I picked it up.

  And…I felt something.

  A call. A voice. A connection.

  I kept my eyes open this time.

  Laying my hand flat, I looked at the rose, and I asked it to rise in the air.

  There was that familiar tingle at the back of my brain. And it didn’t even hesitate.

  The rose floated up into the air.

  “You’re one of us, too,” Nathaniel breathed in wonder. He stepped to my side and his eyes watched as I turned the rose over in the air. “I…I think…what the book said. About affinities. I can make paper do anything. You saw the airplanes and the crane. Margot, I think yours is some kind of…earth maybe. Because the rocks, the weeds. The rose.”

  His words hit me, and I lost my concentration. The rose fell to the ground and a few of the outer pedals broke off.

  I turned sharply on Nathaniel.

  “Explain everything,” I said, the most urgent words I’d ever spoken.

  Chapter Six

  A smile pulled on Nathaniel’s face, and if I’d been in my right mind, I might have taken a second to appreciate the very first entirely uninhibited one I’d ever seen on his face.

  But everything in my world had just changed. So I turned, following Nathaniel back inside.

  “Most students leave once summer arrives,” Nathaniel said as he crossed the solarium and walked to the desk. He closed the red book that had shifted all my perceptions, and held it between his long fingers. “But I stayed here,” he continued as he leaned against the desk. There was wild excitement in his eyes. “I didn’t have anywhere else to return to and no one had bothered me here in the solarium. I spent most of my time in the library, reading everything I could get my hands on when I wasn’t working.”

  I crossed to the leather couch and sank down onto it. I twisted back so I was facing Nathaniel, my elbow propped on the back of the couch, my cheek supported by my fist.

  “I’d been going through some old books in the Gavin room,” Nathaniel said, and with the words, his voice got lighter, airier. “It was obvious no one had bothered with them in maybe a decade. But with them, I found this book.” He held it up and my eyes locked on the red spine. He flipped it open and stared down at the words on the page in bewilderment. “I didn’t even realize what was happening at first. I was holding it, so from the moment I opened it, I could read every word. At first, I thought it was a work of fiction, some old fairy tale.”

  There was a coy smile on Nathaniel’s lips as he looked up at me from beneath his lashes.

  Something exciting and dangerous stirred in my chest.

  “I set it aside and continued going through the other books,” Nathaniel said, moving on. “They were all old Gaelic books, which explained why no one had bothered with them. So few people speak it, the school hasn’t bothered with it too much. But as I finished going through the books, I went to put them away and was going to let Mrs. Walker know that this one was in the wrong section. But as I went to pick it up, I dropped it.”

  My heart hammered. I imagined it as clearly as if I were seeing it in front of me. Nathaniel in the library. Surrounded by endless books. And the discovery of something beyond what the eye can make sense of.

  “It opened to the middle section of the book,” Nathaniel said. He laid the book on the table and removed his hands from it. “And it was all in Gaelic. Which, no, I don’t actually know.”

  I’d been right before. He had lied about it.

  “I was certain about it being a language I didn’t know, but I was also positive that I’d just read half a chapter and understood every single word.”

  It played across my vision like a movie. I knew exactly what he was talking about, because I’d just experienced it for myself.

  “I touched it again, and I couldn’t explain it, but instantly all the words changed, and I could understand all of them,” Nathaniel said as he reached out and touched the book. “I did it again and again, testing it over and over. And it worked every single time. When I touched the book, I could read it. When I didn’t touch it, I couldn’t understand a word.”

  “How?” I asked. I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense. The ink can’t be rearranging itself on the page. It’s just not physically possible.”

  With just my few words of engagement, the light in Nathaniel’s eyes brightened. He dragged the chair at the desk around, facing me. He sat on it backward, the book clutched in his hands. “I’ve never been able to test it without another.” His eyes rose up to meet mine, and I couldn’t help but smile along with him, excitement coursing through my blood. I twisted and got on my knees, my forearms resting on the back of the couch.

  Nathaniel opened the book, letting its spine rest on his hands.

  He looked up at me, expectation in his eyes.

  “Gaelic,” I said. I shook my head. “I can’t read any of it.”

  “Fascinating,” Nathaniel said. He lifted the book to me and handed it off, letting it rest in my hands.

  Instantly, the words changed, and I could read every single one. I looked up at Nathaniel, into his dark eyes.

  He shook his head and let out a little breathy laugh. “Not a word.”

  “So, it’s not physically changing the ink,” I said. My heart was racing. I was excited. Intrigued. Massively and wildly confused. But this… This was every scholar’s dream. “It has to be, somehow…”

  “Revealing itself to people,” Nathaniel filled in for me. “Like there’s some kind of…glamour over the words, protecting itself.”

  “But you think it only reveals itself to certain people?” I ask.

  Nathaniel nodded with a smile. “I know it does,” he said in a rush. “I’ve tested it with half a dozen others. No one could read it. All they saw was the Gaelic. And I even asked one of the professors who knows Gaelic. He said it�
�s just utter nonsense. Just random words that mean absolutely nothing.”

  In awe, I looked back down at the words. There are always limits to an individual’s telekinetic abilities. Weight, practice, the individual’s mental strength all play a factor.

  I could read every word as clear as day.

  “This is why I work in the library, Margot,” Nathaniel said. He sat back in the seat, folding one arm over the other over the back of the chair. “Yes, I love books, and yes, I need the money to survive. But if I found this book, hidden in a forgotten section of the library, what other books might I find within the walls of the library?”

  “You think there are others in the library, like this one?” I asked, my eyes widening and flicking back up to Nathaniel’s.

  He shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe not. But there might be. The University has collected books from around the world, and people are always donating others. And we know there had to be some truth to the Salem Witch Trials. You’re a descendant of someone hanged for being a witch. There had to be others. I had to come from one of them. So maybe more of them had books that could teach us…whatever it was they were killed for.”

  “You really think it’s an inherited ability?” I asked. My mind was spinning, thinking of all the things I needed to learn, all the aspects with holes, which was pretty much everything.

  “I think so,” Nathaniel said. “We…we could test it. Though I don’t think it’s going to work. Because unless your father is also the descendant of a witch…a mage, I believe it came through your McGregor blood.”

  My face froze. I felt it. All of my insides went a little colder.

  He was saying my mother, who had disappeared, seemingly into thin air, was the descendant of witches, who gave me…what? Abilities? Powers?

  “We could test your father with the book.” Nathaniel said the words because it was the scientific method. To test everything we could. But I could tell he sensed my unease, my instant defenses rising at the mention of my mother.

  I knew we would have to. We had to. We needed to know.

  So I nodded, knowing there would be no big rush.

  “What about others?” I asked. I changed the subject, and when I met Nathaniel’s eyes, I saw that he knew why I needed to. “I mean, my grandparents are dead, so there’s the end of that blood line. But do you…do you think there are others out there, like…us?”