by Rin Grey
That role had the potential to keep her tied here. Not only that, she didn’t even know what the Salinga heir did, or what would be required of her. Either way, she suspected she wouldn’t be good at working under someone else’s direction. She bit back a sigh. She’d have to figure it out somehow. It was better than Mitch being trapped in it.
All of those issues were more than enough reason to explain her sleepless night.
Elizabeth wasn’t buying it. Overshadowing them all was an overwhelming fear brought on by the dream that seemed to go on for hours. Desperately searching for something she had lost.
The dream wasn’t unfamiliar. She’d had versions of it many nights since she had left the Dome. She knew why she was having it again.
Being here kept her away from the Dome. Possibly even had the potential to pit her against her fellow mages there, depending on what Jocelyn was up to.
She felt like she was being pulled in two directions.
Which was ridiculous really.
The reality was, if Sean showed up, she knew she’d have no hesitation in leaving everything here and following him, no questions asked. Her stomach quivered at just the thought of him.
Which was exactly what all of them would expect of her.
That was why she needed to keep her distance, and not stay any longer than she needed to to see that Mitch had control of his magic. She didn’t want them to start relying on her.
She didn’t want to hurt them all over again when she left.
A hesitant knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts. Elizabeth stared at the mirror, realising she’d stood there not moving for who knew how long. She gave her head a shake, as though she could shake away all the doubts that had crowded her mind.
“Yes? Come in,” she called out, wiping her still dripping hands on the clean, fluffy towel. Gemma made a much better housewife than she ever had.
The door opened and her grandson’s curly black head peeped in. “I didn’t wake you, did I?” Mitch asked.
“No, I was just washing.”
He came in and sat on the side of the bed, hands twisting nervously. This wasn’t a casual visit then.
“What’s up?” she asked him.
“I was just wondering… well, when are we going to start the magic lessons?”
“I was thinking straight after breakfast. Why?” Elizabeth probed.
Mitch looked relieved. “That would be good. It’s just, I just, well, I felt weird, like I did before the magic came last time, and I want to learn to control this as quickly as possible.”
Elizabeth nodded briskly, best to start as soon as possible if he was having episodes that frequently. She could tell just from his proximity that his magic would be strong. She could feel the magic coursing through him, as though searching for an outlet, and knew he would find his feet easily as soon as she showed him the way.
“If you had been born in the Dome, you would have already been at the Academy for a few years,” she explained to him. “Mages come into their magic earlier there. It’s routinely tested for at school.”
Mitch’s nose wrinkled. “Why would they get their magic earlier there?”
“Well, there’s more magic in the Dome,” Elizabeth explained, happy that having something concrete to focus on helped her find her calm again. “Out here in Selenthia there isn’t any magic other than our own, so we have to build up more magic in our bodies before we can use it. In Linarra, there is magic actually in the air, so a mage can begin to use it as soon as their ability awakens, without having to wait for their own magic to grow to a useful level.”
“I noticed that, I think. But why is their magic in the Dome and not out here?” Mitch asked curiously.
Elizabeth smiled. There would be no need to drill facts and information into him, he sought them out himself. Most mages within the Dome never even thought to ask that question. Then again, unlike Mitch, they lacked the experience of life outside the Dome to compare it to.
“No one’s really sure why,” she explained.
“No one knows?” Mitch asked in disbelief. “I thought the mages in the Dome knew everything?”
Elizabeth laughed at that. “Oh no, not everything. There’s a lot still to be discovered about how magic works and why it is here.”
Mitch looked intrigued and Elizabeth laughed again. “Before you get caught up in that, I think we both could do with some breakfast. Then we can get on to the practical lessons.”
Nodding reluctantly, Mitch followed Elizabeth down the stairs to where the aroma of breakfast led them.
Elizabeth suspected that, left to his own devices, Mitch would have skipped breakfast in preference for beginning lessons, but she was hungry, an inevitable consequence of large scale magic use. Plus she wanted to see how Gemma was this morning.
Even before they arrived in the kitchen, Gemma’s cheerful singing could be heard. She stood at the stove, pouring batter into the skillet. A plate piled high with golden pancakes stood next to her.
Mitch licked his lips and hurried to fetch a jar of strawberry jam and a fresh pot of cream from the pantry.
Gemma turned and smiled when she saw them. “Good morning,” she called out cheerfully. “Sit down and eat, they’re best when they’re warm. I’ll join you in a few minutes, this is the last batch.”
Neither Elizabeth nor Mitch needed any second urging. They ate hungrily, not pausing for any more talking.
When Gemma joined them with the last few pancakes, she smiled. “I take it you like them then?”
Elizabeth just nodded, mouth full and reached for another one.
Once the pancakes were all gone, there was no longer any excuse for not discussing the matter on all their minds. Still, Elizabeth hesitated.
Gemma broke the silence. “So, what happens now?”
“We start lessons,” Elizabeth said, watching her daughter closely.
The widening of Gemma’s eyes was unmistakable. “This morning?” she asked, a slight shake in her voice.
“No time like the present,” Elizabeth said firmly. She hesitated. Perhaps what she needed was to draw Gemma in. If her daughter learned a little about magic, maybe she would fear it less. “You can come and watch if you like, Gemma?”
“I think I might just leave the two of you to it for now,” Gemma answered hurriedly. She smiled, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes, and she turned away towards the sink. ‘I have to do these dishes.”
Her fear was deep. Elizabeth caught the crestfallen look on Mitch’s face, and bit back a sigh. She wasn’t going to be able to ignore this. If it wasn’t solved, it would force a wedge between Mitch and his mother. She would have to talk to Gemma about it.
But not this morning. First, she needed to concentrate on Mitch, before his magic got out of control again. She’d taken on the responsibility of training him if he returned home, and she had no intention of shirking that.
She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Let’s go up to your room, Mitch, it’s helpful for you to be somewhere that you feel totally comfortable for this first lesson.”
Better for him to be away from his mother’s fears too, but Elizabeth didn’t say that.
Mitch glanced at his mother once, but when she didn’t respond, he followed Elizabeth wordlessly up the stairs.
Chapter 2 - Lessons
Mitch sat cross legged on his bed and took a deep breath, hoping to settle the butterflies in his belly. Just because his mother was afraid of magic didn’t mean he had to be.
He was determined to prove to her that it wasn’t such a scary thing.
“So how did you learn how to use your magic?” he asked Elizabeth to distract himself. “Did you go to the Academy in the Dome?”
Elizabeth shook her head, “The Academy didn’t exist when I first learned. Neither did the Dome for that matter. A more experienced mage found me and agreed to teach me.”
Something in her tone of voice made Mitch curious. But her face was closed and he didn’t thin
k she’d welcome further questioning. On that topic at least.
Instead he asked, “So what sort of things will I be able to do? Can I make stuff disappear? Can I move stuff around without touching it? Can I make myself stay young forever, like you do?” He could think of a million other things that he wanted to be able to do, but her amused expression made him stop for long enough for her to answer.
“Yes. Yes. And no, not really. Making things disappear, or at least appear to disappear, is easy, as is moving things. Staying young, well, that takes quite a bit of magic. You’re going to be powerful, but not that powerful.” Her expression darkened a little when she spoke of staying young. Or perhaps at him not being able to.
Mitch wasn’t really that upset about it. He was far more interested in growing up than not getting old. He was curious though.
“So do mages vary a lot in how much power they have? Do you have a lot more than I do?”
“There’s a lot of variation in magical ability,” Elizabeth said. “You and I are on the upper level of that spectrum. There are a lot of mages that have so little power they might never even notice they had it if the Dome didn’t find them.”
Mitch took a few moments to digest that. It had never occurred to him that his magic was any different to anyone else’s. The thought that he was closer to Elizabeth’s power level than to that of many other mages overwhelmed him a little.
“But, you must be more powerful than me,” he pointed out, “because you can do the young magic, and I can’t, right?”
He could see the hesitation in Elizabeth’s eyes.
He was missing something. Or she was lying to him.
“I’m not powerful enough to do it either,” she admitted. “Not out here. I can only keep myself young while I have access to the Dome.”
Mitch wrinkled his nose, trying to figure it out. Why could she do it in the Dome, but not here? Then he remembered their earlier conversation. “You use some of that magic that floats around in the air in the Dome, don’t you?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, I do. My own magic by itself isn’t great enough to keep myself young.”
Mitch frowned, thinking about that. “So if you tried, what would happen? You’d run out half way through or something?”
Elizabeth nodded. “I’d probably only be able to do less than a quarter of the ritual, which wouldn’t keep me young at all.”
“And you’d be out of magic, right? What happens then? Does it come back?”
He didn’t like the thought of being out of magic, and he hadn’t even learned to use his yet.
The slight shudder that Elizabeth gave indicated she didn’t like it either. “Yes, I’d be completely drained. Using so much of your magic that you’ve drained yourself is exhausting, even more so than normal tiredness. It does come back, though slowly. Sleep helps, which is what you want to do anyway.” She gave a wry grin.
“So what other things use so much magic that it drains you?” Mitch asked curiously.
Elizbeth held up her fingers and ticked things off. “The youth ritual, obviously, Teleporting. Healing more than minor wounds. And, of course, anything that you’re doing for long enough.”
Mitch nodded, a little disappointed. He’d kind of enjoyed teleporting back from the Dome with her, and was sad he wouldn’t be able to do it himself. Not sad enough to want to return to the Dome though.
“What about reading minds?” he asked. “I bet that would take a lot of magic.”
Elizabeth laughed softly. “That’s one skill you can’t learn. Mages can’t read minds, change people’s will, or do anything that affects your thoughts or beliefs.”
“Why?” Mitch asked immediately. That seemed a curious limitation, and one he’d never heard of before.
“Because that’s how magic works,” Elizabeth said. “Magic is limited to physical changes. We can only affect what we can see or touch.”
Mitch thought about that for a few moments, but it made sense, given his narrow experience of magic.
“So, do you want to start?” Elizabeth asked.
Mitch nodded, excitement pushing away some of his questions. He was going to learn to be a mage!
“Right. I’m assuming that you’ve been able to see into things and see what they’re made up of?”
“Yes,” Mitch admitted. The reality sobered him a little, excitement fading in a healthy dose of nerves.
“Right, try to do it now,” Elizabeth instructed.
He had never actually tried to see the strange view voluntarily before, and wasn’t quite sure how. He stared at the quilt on his bed until his vision blurred, but all that happened was it looked out of focus. He sighed in frustration. “I can’t.”
“That’s all right, it takes a little practice,” she encouraged. “Try not to look at the object, but rather, see past its surface, into its structure.”
Mitch tried again and after staring at his quilt for several minutes, he was just about to give up when his vision shifted and he could again see the tiny floating particles that made up the material.
“I did it!” he exclaimed, so excited that he lost concentration and his vision returned to normal. “I saw it, I did,” he said, a touch disappointed.
He’d thought magic would be easy, given that he’d already done it by accident. But doing it on purpose was harder than he’d expected.
Elizabeth smiled. “Good. Now try again.”
She insisted he try again and again, until he could shift his perception at will, and shift back again. By then, he was well and truly bored of the exercise. This wasn’t magic, it was just… staring at stuff.
“When do I get to do something more interesting?” he asked plaintively.
“Not until you’ve mastered this. If you can’t control your perception of magic, how do you expect to be able to control the magic itself?” Elizabeth asked.
He sighed and repeated the exercise yet again.
How many times was she going to insist he do this? After a few more tries, he was about to object again, when Elizabeth started distracting him. Blowing a cool breeze across his face as he was concentrating, or talking to him non-stop, asking questions about school and home that confused him.
Just when he was about to give up, and say he didn’t want to be a mage anymore, not right now anyway, she smiled, and said, “Right, now that you can see the magic, let’s see what you can do with it.” She poured a glass of water from the jug near his bed and handed it to him.
He took it and stared at her, wondering what he was supposed to do.
“Look at the water, and tell me what you see.”
Obediently, he shifted his perception, and looked into the structure of the water. The particles were small, and wavered around all over the place without any pattern or structure.
He said as much to Elizabeth, and she nodded. “Liquid is fluid. There is no structure to its particles, making it particularly suited to this exercise. Now that you can see it, I want you to touch the particles.”
He looked at her, confused, and reached out his hand towards the water. He touched the water, but nothing happened. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Close your eyes and feel the particles.”
She was talking nonsense. How was he supposed to feel the particles? With his eyes closed, he wouldn’t even be able to see them. But he closed them anyway and tried to feel anything other than the smooth coolness of the water.
At first, it was just water. But as he concentrated, he started to… feel was the wrong word… sense… the water. It was almost as if he could see it with his fingers. It was a most peculiar sensation, like tiny, painless pinpricks all over his finger, and he sat examining it for a while before Elizabeth’s quiet voice intruded on his thoughts.
“Now that you can feel the particles, try to move them. Not with your finger, but with your mind.”
Without opening his eyes, he let his awareness leave his finger and move out amongst the particles. He shoved one, pushing it with his mind
. It was easier than he thought. He pushed another, and another, and soon he could sense them whizzing merrily about.
He was startled out of his magical perception by the water splashing on his bed, wetting him through. He opened his eyes, to see Elizabeth laughing at him.
“I see you worked it out,” she said with a grin.
“Yeah, apparently,” he agreed ruefully.
Elizabeth smiled, and the moisture in his quilt quickly evaporated.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“I’ll show you. Feel the water again. Eventually you’ll get good enough that you can do it without touching, but for now, the physical connection will make it easier.”
As he did as she instructed, she continued, “Now, push at the particles again, but this time, try to transfer some of your magical energy into them. Move them, but in the one spot, more vibrating than actually moving.”
He concentrated on trying to make the particles vibrate and was pleased to discover that as one began vibrating, he could transfer the movement to the particles nearby easily, spreading the vibration through the water.
He was so engrossed in watching it, that it was a few moments before he realised how hot the water was getting. The pain hit him by surprise. He pulled his fingers out, opening his eyes at the same time. “Ouch.”
Elizabeth was grinning at him. “The water does get a bit hot. That’s one of the downsides of having to touch it. Never mind, you’ll get better with practice.”
“I hope so,” he said, sucking on his fingers. He’d pulled them out before they were actually burnt, so the sting quickly faded. The surprise that he’d made the water that hot though, hung around for longer.
It was exciting to be able to actually use his magic for something, but also a little scary. He could see how easily it could get out of hand, and was glad Elizabeth was there to help him.
“How about we cool the water back down again?” she suggested.
Mitch nodded and listened to her explanation of how to draw the heat out of the water, dissipating it into the air.
