by L Cross
He thought that just because he had more talent, more power that he could lord it over me. Of course, that was exactly what it meant. But I wanted to indulge a little of my pettiness and take my frustrations out on things that I couldn’t control.
Stupid, talented legacy mages who were also wardens.
Eventually I remembered that I was doing this for a reason. Hanami had been suspended and until I could give the Mages another trail to follow, she would be their only suspect and therefore the sole focus on the investigation.
As they followed the clues toward the wrong person, the true person responsible would be going around free. Not to mention the fact that the demon responsible could be under any kind of compulsion. It might have a new target or possibly snacking on some heightened emotions on the side.
Maybe it could be spawning more clones of itself.
Not being a demon expert, it could be a million reasons, and that was exactly why this situation made me both anxious and hopeful at the same time. Hanami’s situation was clearly circumstantial. Not even the Merlin believed the accusations.
Unfortunately, she was the one who was caught with a dirty wand with a record of showing up her mentors. Hanami had her own unique brand of pushing back against established modes of thinking.
I looked at the first box and sighed.
13
Words from a Genius
I wrestled the last file into the box, and huffed out a sigh. Hands on my hips I gazed at the remaining boxes left in the alcove. Old and worn boxes lined the shelves that were carved into the walls, all of which had files crammed into them.
Compared to the neatly stacked rows of the nine boxes I sorted, it looked like I barely made a dent of progress. When I felt the familiar surge of anger crawl up my throat, I worked to swallow it down.
You can’t be a knight if I get kicked out of the program. I won’t have to work with Morgan for too much longer. Soon, I’ll be able to do my own thing.
I thought of that moment against when I pulled the sword from the stone during my initial trials. That was the last time I really felt like I did something completely and utterly magical.
Since then, it was almost like
At least the floor was clear.
"Oh my god, I thought he was joking," I heard a voice say. I looked up and Wyn was leaning against the door jamb of the alcove.
My sleeves were rolled up, boots off, and I was sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Hey, what're you doing here?"
"Checking out if what I heard was true or just some elaborate prank." He looked around. "What was the actual assignment?"
"Just to organize these files."
Wyn chuckled and shook his head.
I wasn't going to think about the fact that he was pretty when he did that, all five o'clock shadow and all. "What's so funny?" I asked.
"What's funny is that this was his job," Wyn said. “Morgan’s, I mean.”
As if I couldn’t figure out who he was referring to.
I froze in mid action. Slowly I turned my gaze toward Wyn. "What?" I asked slowly drawing out the word as if it had way more syllables.
"This is his job. Been assigned to him forever." Wyn walked around the room, picked up a file from the still-untouched side of the room. Opening it up, he started reading what was inside. "Maude Finnel. Missing twenty years ago. Last seen with roommates until they split after Maude met a guy. Never seen or heard from again. The roommates suspected foul play, the police suspected run away. Everyone involved mind-wiped to forget about her."
Wyn closed the folder with a finality and slipped it into a box as if he didn't just read a scary tale.
"What happened to her? Does it say?"
"No, and it won't. That's the point of this place. All these things happened a long time ago but some were recent. All are unsolved, and left to be taken care of in the most expedient matter."
"A memory wipe?"
Wyn nodded in confirmation.
"But why? And why isn’t someone looking into people disappearing?"
“Oh, people have looked into the disappearances. Trust me.” Something flickered over his eyes. "The mind wipe? It's easier. If it wasn't then the mages wouldn't do it so often."
"How often does that happen?" I asked.
Wyn looked at me then gestured around the room, arms wide as he walked in a deliberate circle. "Look around, Artura. These files are your answer."
"I don't understand."
"Each file represents a case for an unsolved issue. Meaning, each folder represents at least one moment where someone's memories were altered to suit the mages' agenda.”
There had to be hundreds—no, thousands—of them. I wished to speak but lost all ability to.
"All of these people?" I asked, words shaky.
"Do you not know that you're working in what we call the Oubliette?"
It was the name for both a torture device. The place of forgetting or the forgotten ones. Where people used to throw vile prisoners, or any unfortunate soul who annoyed those in charge.
Like me. The poor unfortunate soul that Morgan targeted for some reason.
“I spend good energy sorting through all this shit, and it was his work all along,” I said dropping my pile into the box rather than the precision I'd displayed before Wyn walked in.
“That’s Morgan for you. Would it help you to know that you’ve done more work here than he’s done in three years?”
Heat creeped onto my cheeks at his praise. I busied myself to hide the blush with physical activity. “No, it does not help me to know, but thanks.”
I pushed the box in place, all a neat row. Now this first alcove was neat, alphabetized. Dusty, but clutter-free. “Why the hell are there files, anyway? Isn’t this all kind of basic for the magical community.”
“Well, the more magical you are, the less electronics want to work around you in a dependable fashion. It’s why many of us don’t bother with cell phones—they get annoying to replace.” He seemed to be speaking from experience.
I snorted. “You know you sound like a magical snob when you say stuff like that, right?” I took on a mocking, older tone. “‘Oh, I simply can’t be bothered with cell phones because I’m just way too magical! Phones are so blasé; don’t you know anyone who’s anyone uses smoke signals!’”
Wyn chuckled. “First of all, why did you make me sound like an old woman?”
I shrugged. “I can only work with what I have.”
“I have it on good authority that it’s all about reading rat intestines nowadays,” he said with a wink. “Actually, we all still have our phones, but the elders don’t so we’re all very careful around mirrors or other reflective surfaces.” A deep red blush bloomed on his cheeks. Whatever memory came to mind, made his eyes glow.
I decided not to pry, thinking about how nonchalant I was with myself and body in front of mirrors. I was often practically naked in the bathroom. When my thoughts wandered to what Wyn would look like naked, I busied myself with the last bit filing.
Wyn pushed off from where he’d been leaning and walked over to the middle of the now empty floor.
There was a file that I just noticed laying there. Where did that come from?
He crouched down and picked it up, waving his finger over it. I felt a little tension in the air, as if the gravity concentrated in this space for a brief moment before releasing.
“Another reason for physical files. A lot easier to bespell and protect physical things.”
Wyn handed it to me.
I glanced from the folder to the spot on the floor where it had come from back to the folder. It was the file, I just knew it. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, snatching it from Wyn’s grasp.
“Don’t say that too loud. Morgan’s mother might hear you.” Wyn’s eyes twinkled with hidden knowledge.
Opening the folder, I leafed through the contents and confirmed my beliefs. “Where the hell was this, I would have seen this,” I said. “Should have seen this in the
middle of a freaking empty floor.”
Wyn waved his hand over the file and disappeared it. I could still feel it in my hand, but I could no longer see it. It was like I could see through it to him. It was trippy.
“Whoa that’s awesome. It’s invisible.”
The longer I stared, I started to see it shimmer along the edges.
“It would require more energy—or more magic—to overcome the fact that you already know it’s there. It takes less effort to hide when no one expects it. That’s why it’s easy to hide a magical community, complete with monsters. Most people don’t believe they exist even when faced with one of them.”
With all the monsters I’d seen in the short time in this community, I found that theory farfetched.
“It’s that easy? There isn’t like an enchanted juju spell that comes out of Avalon mists to dope the masses?” I asked.
“If anything, mass doping would be easiest through the water,” he teased. “Seriously though, the non-magical community doesn’t want to believe in the supernatural. They’re too busy just saying, ‘this can’t be real, this can’t be real’ and so to them, it’s not real.”
“That’s convenient. And anyone who needs a little finessing, it’s easier to change their memory?” I asked, knowing that was what happened with me when my Sight first woke up.
“Exactly.”
I wanted to know more. I wanted to feel into this magic that seemed so innate to other people. For all my rank, I didn’t feel connected to magic like everyone else seemed to be.
And with Morgan as my “mentor” I doubted he’d do anything to help me advance. But Wyn is a warden. I didn’t exactly know what the ranks meant, but he wore a gray cloak versus black. And wardens seemed to have more responsibilities than knights.
I bit my lip, and screwed up my courage. “How did you reveal this?”
“You can pick one of many spells. An easy spell is revelare. The harder part is the focus you’d need to direct the magic toward the one specific object. Try it.”
I did and nothing happened. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. “Why am I even in this school?” I muttered, shaking my head.
“If you had made this disappear on your first try, I’d have given you a knight’s cloak immediately,” he said. “Give yourself a break. It takes practice to finesse magic. Here try this. Take off your shoes and stand comfortably.”
He was actually going to teach me. I kicked off my shoes, and stood in my socks. “Okay.”
Wyn circled me, nodding. “Now I want you to open your mind and feel the energy around you. For some it’s a buzzing. For other’s it’s a pull. But there’s something like an electric current that you probably had with you but just weren’t aware of. Go ahead and try it. When I first started, it helped me when I closed my eyes, and there was complete silence.”
I followed his advice. For some reason, it made me feel better that he said that he needed to work at this when he first started. It made me feel like there was hope for me learning this stuff.
At first, I was very self-conscious. I wondered what Wyn was thinking, what he was seeing, and I felt a little guilty taking his time as I stood there.
“Feel anything yet?” he asked, his quiet voice barely registered as sound.
“Nothing yet.”
“It’ll be subtle. A part of you.”
I kept the frustration from my tone. “Nothing’s different yet.”
“That’s fine. A trick I used was to focus on my breath. Count every inhale and exhale. That will help you get past a lot of the conscious thoughts. If a thought pops up into your head, pretend like you’re pushing it away in your mind, and go back to counting your breath again.”
I tried again, feeling silly. But as I counted, I felt a loosening in my chest. A feeling of expansion and calm.
A warmth rushed from my belly and settled on my hands, and scorched down to my toes. An answering flare of something settled on the back of my neck.
This. This had to be the feeling he mentioned. Subtle, but there, like something with me.
It was like the feeling of intuition that I’d get that something was wrong or when I was really excited about something.
“You feel it, don’t you?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. You were right. Subtle but there.”
“For some, they can almost feel the magic speaking to them. Do you feel yours saying anything?” he asked.
“Not really speaking, but there was this thought that popped in my head when I finally did.”
I am here.
“That’s good. You don’t have to share it. It’s usually more pertinent for you. Okay, now let’s try focusing it. Think of sunbeams just scattered around versus being focused through a magnifying glass.” He reached into his pocket and took out sleekly polished wand.
I recognized it from when we’d first met, though it had been a staff during the fight.
He handed his wand to me, handle first. “This will be easier for you to feel and focus, especially since this wand is used to being a conduit for magic.”
I wrapped my fingers around it, warm and light. He held the folder up again. “Imagine yourself calling up that energy that you feel around you, and pushing it through the wand. And then say, revelare.”
With a wand as a focus, it was easier for me to see where I needed to point my energy. A warm buzzing spread from my back and shot down through my arm. I could almost feel it shooting through the wand. “Revelare,” I said.
The folder flickered but remained hidden.
“You have the basic, now try again. Just a little more oomph. Believe that it’s there. Show it who’s boss.”
I tried again, and it was barely a flicker again.
“You got this. One more. Believe that this is the only way for you to ever read the contents of this file.”
I thought of Morgan and his sneering contempt for anything around him that he didn’t deem good enough. I needed to know what’s in the file. Believed that it held answers for me.
I braced myself readying for a punch. “Revelare,” I demanded.
The file lit up like a captured star. I turned away, shielding my eyes. “Holy crap, make it stop!” I yelled.
It stopped.
We laughed. “Are your retinas burnt to a crisp?” I asked
He chuckled, squeezing his eyes shut. Damn his lashes are so long. “Yeah, but it’s cool. I hear they grow back, right?”
He handed me the file, still blinking the shine out of them. “You earned this.”
I beamed nearly as bright as my spell as I put the file in my bag. I was suddenly extremely hungry. “Come on, I’m hungry, and could totally go for a pizza.”
“Sure. We can be the blind leading the blind,” he said.
I snorted. “Come on, it’s not that bad. Traffic will totally honk at us and swerve if we get in our way.”
“If not, do I get to push you away and fend for myself?”
“Deal,” I giggled. Peering at Wyn from the corners of my eye, I asked, “So how did you know he’d do something like this?”
“What? Hide something in plain sight? We do that all the time.”
He said it so matter-of-factly.
“Really? All the time? Why?”
Wyn shrugged. “Why does anyone prank anyone? Besides, we all share a house. I’m used to the little tricks we play on each other.”
“I just can’t imagine him...playful.”
He burst out laughing. “You make him seem like an alien.”
That’s exactly what I think of him, I thought to myself. “Well, thanks for showing me how to do that. When Hanami was trying to teach me stuff I wanted to die.”
“Magic is like any other part of you. Like a muscle. It will take from you like any other exercise would. Flip side? The more you practice, the more you’ll acclimate.”
“That’s so cool,” I said. “I’m suddenly glad I don’t have guys for roommates. Hanami just wanted to do the work for me
at her worst. And at her best, she’s a little cheerleader.”
“And that’s why you want to find out what happened the other night I bet.”
I nodded. I had this strange feeling that if I were to try to speak, I’d end up embarrassing myself and cry.
In the growing awkward pause, I said, “Anyway, pizza?”
Wyn nodded then paused and turned back toward the now-neat alcove.
“What?” I asked, growing a little concerned at the manic glee in Wyn’s eye.
“Would you think I’m horrible if I glamoured the place to look like you barely did any work, and pretend you never found that file?”
I smiled. “Not only would I not think you’re horrible, I would think you’re a mastermind genius.”
14
Field Day Jitters
At the pizza place, Wyn ended up ordering an entire pie for us. He promised that there wouldn’t be any leftovers.
I didn’t believe him, but as I leafed through the very sparse information in the case file, I ended up eating four slices of pizza.
I was polishing off my final slice and still looking around for more.
“You want me to order another one?”
I shook my head. “Nah. I’m just surprised I ate all that. I’m always hungry of course, but two slices are usually my limit.”
“Magic. It takes it out of you. That’s why we always have some kind of ration with us. Just in case we’re stuck in the field.”
“I can’t wait to learn more,” I said. I meant it. I loved that rush of new knowledge. For the first time, I was finally feeling like I belonged here.
Wyn took a long sip of his orange soda, the muscles of his neck rippling as he did so.
Maybe it was the high from casting my first real spell, or maybe all the carbs in the pizza was getting to me. But I felt brave in that moment, and just like in the library, I leaned into the fear rather than shrink away from it.
“Hey, do you think you’d want to take a field trip with me? If you’re not too busy with warden things, of course.”
