by Peri Akman
“Your needlessly bitter extremism is foolish,” Tellack hissed. “That law is to protect them. To stop people like YOU from being a teacher!”
“Yes, because that would be terrible, wouldn’t it? A warlock with an opinion! Truly, anyone I tried to teach would instantly disintegrate. That’s why I can’t raise kittens,” Kole snapped back.
“We don’t have to take this,” Tellack snarled. She looked at Quinn. “Quinn… honey, why don’t we go back. You can test again in six months. It'll be fine. You don’t want her. She’s just a bitter criminal looking to get her kicks out of bullying the less powerful.”
“Alternative offer,” Kole cut in. “You spend one year with me, and I guarantee you that you’ll be a fully trained, fully competent warlock. No waiting for the dying gasps of puberty before you get your tattoo removed. I’ll make you a full fledged warlock by the time you’re—how old are you now again?—whatever! By this time next year!”
“Oh—that is the most ridiculous thing I have EVER heard!” Tellack snarled, her voice reaching higher levels again. “A warlock needs years. It’s the only safe way! Are you trying to make him into a danger to everyone around him!?”
Kole made a clucking noise. “I’m sorry, I thought I was a guest here. You think Serethen was going to teach one of these brats in a slow and safe manner? I’d bet money that Lyra is just going to go straight into a warzone and drop that kid off and see what happens. It’s in the law. Every warlock is allowed to teach their student to how they see fit. And the way I see it fit, is one year. Legally valid, no crime charged.”
“It doesn’t have to be illegal for it to be wrong!” Tellack snapped back.
“Oh so you agree with me! Excellent!” Kole replied cheerfully. “Besides, your opinion accounts for not a damn thing. It’s Quinn who matters here. Whom, might I add, you have been doing a FANTASTIC job of speaking over.”
Tellack turned to look at Quinn. Kole also leered at the boy, as if trying to read his mind. Was she a mind reader? Quinn hadn’t actually seen her use any magic this entire time.
“Quinn…how do you feel about this?” Teacher Tellack asked.
Quinn bit his lip. His head swirled with thoughts. He had never heard vitriol like Kole had spewed. It didn’t seem remotely true but…
Teacher Tellack hadn’t exactly argued back well, either.
“Kole,” Quinn spoke slowly and carefully, as to make sure his voice didn’t shake. “Why… why did you pick me? Why did you decide you wanted me as your student?”
A sort of dark sigh. “Honestly, Quinn? ’Cause no one else did. Don’t have any reason other than that.”
“So… no one wanted me?”
“Well, yeah.”
It was so matter-of-fact that Quinn felt like throwing up. But then it occurred to him. He could ask her. He could ask her and get the truth.
“Why?” Quinn spoke breathlessly. “What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong Qu—” Teacher Tellack began, before Kole cut her off.
“Multiple reasons. For one, you’re very middle of the road. The thing you have to understand about most successful warlocks, is that they are eccentric. In fact, I’m pretty sure most warlocks are in competition to out-eccentric each other. Those tests we were handed out? Detailed reports of not only your scores, but every time you ever rebelled, fought back, and what you wanted to do the most and showed the most interest in,” Kole explained casually. It was unnerving how… matter-of-fact she was.
“Your testing showed all right scores, but no comments. No one could remember a single thing about you. I think one of your teachers mentioned that you were a hard worker. So you wanna know what you did wrong? It’s the fact that not once, did you ever actually do anything wrong. You were the textbook standard. In the normal world, you’d be perfect. No one wants geniuses or asses, only people who work. But in the world of magic you can’t afford to be middle of the road. You need to find an extreme. You need to be brilliant, because no one gives a shit about average. Otherwise you’ll never make it, sorry to say.”
Quinn felt a lump in his throat. The answer had… not been what he was expecting.
“But… but…” Quinn trailed off. “Jeffern had even less to say than me and he got a lot of questions…”
“Well, yeah, Jeffern was the large kid with the perpetual frown, right? He’s quiet. Stoically so. Like he might snap and kill people. Interesting, essentially. You’re not. You’re just mildly quiet. No one cares about the people who are casually quiet. You have to commit to the stone cold face if you want to go that route,” Kole answered with a shrug.
“See, Quinn?” Teacher Tellack said, her voice hoarse. “This woman thinks you’re trash.” She spat slightly at this. “She clearly thinks we’re all trash. You shouldn’t speak with her anymore. Let’s go back. I can make you tea.”
Quinn stared at Teacher Tellack, and then back at Kole.
This was his one chance, and he was being forced to turn it away. No. Not forced. It was his choice. Only his choice. But he couldn’t go with this woman. She was… unstable! Terrifying!
But the alternative. Six more months of testing. For another group of warlocks who would probably just dismiss him the same way. How old would he be before he got out of here? 17? 18? 26?
Or would they just give up eventually, and send him to work?
But… this woman had taken pity on him. This wasn’t picking him out, this was because no one else would. Quinn didn’t want to be pitied and taken as some sort of weird consolation prize. He was a human being, dammit!
A human being who had been lied to by Teacher Brandie. Teacher Tellack hadn’t done much better either. She hadn’t lied to him like Brandie, but he didn’t exactly feel valued either.
One year. He had spent years in this Academy. He could spend one year with her. It wasn’t like she could be that bad—
She had dropped Asim. He hadn’t seen the fight, true, but she had dropped Asim and with magic he couldn’t get back up.
“I uh…” Quinn took a deep breath. “I actually want to stay here for a bit. She is… going to be my teacher. So… you know… I figured I should find out now what sort of places I’ll be heading.”
Tellack gave a surprised squawk, but Quinn had been expecting that. What he hadn’t expected was an identical noise coming from Kole. The two spoke rapidly at the same time, splitting Quinn’s ears.
“Quinn are you sure? This is a big mistake you’re making—”
“Wait did you just decide to go with me? Well, here I was thinking—”
“—and it is your choice and I will support you but I’m a bit older here and—”
“—that you’d pick the safe route. I’m just colored surprised right now.”
“—please Quinn just reconsider I beg of you.”
Quinn looked between them. “I uh… I didn’t understand either of you, to be honest. But um, I’m going to go with Kole. As her student. That’s… that’s my decision.”
Tellack visibly withered. She pursed her lips together. “Fine then. You can ask, with my supervision.”
Kole snorted. “Sore loser, ain’tcha? Granted I’d be too if I were you. Didn’t know you had a spine, Quinn.”
Quinn’s face flushed. He was very much uncomfortable, and already regretting his life choices, however slightly.
“I have a spine,” Quinn whispered in defiance.
Kole cackled again. “Yes! Good! Argue with me! I love it!” She gripped her walking stick, limped towards Quinn, and held out her bandaged hand.
“I have a strict no-shaking-hands policy, but considering how we’re going to be doing that in an hour or so anyway, why not get this whole ‘trust’ charade started, hm?”
Quinn lightly took her hand, and she gripped it back tightly.
Everything turned white.
Chapter Four
Quinn staggered, but just for a moment. His vision returned, with the addition of several stars that danced across
his line of sight.
Tellack was screaming. Magically screaming. If it affected Kole, she certainly gave no indication. The sounds just bounced around her.
“Once again, completely allowed by the law.” Kole spoke in a tired and nasally tone.
“YOU ARE UNSAFE AND WILL BE EJECTED FROM THE PREMISES FOR OBJECTIONABLE AND IRRATIONAL CONDUCT!” Tellack screamed, the sound waves bouncing off of the walls. Quinn covered his ears. It practically burned. If he was dizzy before, the screaming did not help.
Kole did not react much outwardly, although a low groaning noise was emanating from her direction.
Tellack stopped her screaming to breathe. Her sound waves continued bouncing off of walls and other physical structures, keeping the noise going. At this pause, a clear mental voice rang out amongst the phantom yelling.
Teacher Tellack!
The three looked up to see Teacher Brandie, covering his ears, quite horrified.
“What the void, Tellack?”
Quinn blinked hazily. He could ask the same thing of everyone else. As usual, he was rather confused.
“She!!” Tellack pointed at Kole. “Just initiated the bonding process with Quinn!”
Brandie furrowed his brow. “Uh... well... that’s weird. I mean, we started that anyway. I understand if you wanted them to have it done with the music and decorations but—”
“You don’t understand, Brandie! She’s done nothing but accuse us of being slave traders, and bloodied Asim of Trell.”
“In my defense, he said he started it!” Kole chimed in.
Brandie blinked. “Oh... uh…” He shifted awkwardly, trying his best to solve this problem in an equal and fair manner that resolved all conflict. “Well, Teacher Tellack, that’s not an excuse to yell at her. And. Kole. You shouldn’t have started the initiation process. It can go wrong if not done correctly.”
Tellack squinted angrily at Brandie. She gave a huff of air, and left the premises.
“Wait,” Quinn blurted out. “I thought that involved skin touching and vows and…”
“Yeah, it can,” Kole said casually. “Or if you learn how to do it, like me, you can just overload it. And normally I would ask, but with your teacher-mother over there, I figured I’d just get it over with.”
“Get it over with?” Brandie asked, a bit unsure of himself. “What do you mean?”
“Oh? No one told you? I have a skin disease. Well, I don’t have it. I can just... give it to people. If Quinn and I did the whole hand shaking thing, he’d probably be dead within a few months. Hence my annoying amount of bandages.”
“I would have liked to have been asked first,” Quinn grumbled. He also wanted to loudly exclaim the fact that he would have liked to have been informed about said skin disease before shaking hands with her, but the words just weren’t formulating correctly.
“I mean, to be fair, if she had a skin disease I can see why she would—” Brandie stepped in, attempting to mediate.
“No. Quinn is right,” Kole said dismissively. “I was selfish and wanted to get it over with. So I did. So to make it up to you…” She trailed off, thinking. “You can decide what city-state we head to. Or, I dunno, I’ll get you a puppy. Do you like puppies?”
Kole was being... oddly nice all of a sudden. Was it an act? Quinn frowned inwardly.
“No,” Quinn muttered. “I’m actually kind of allergic to most things that shed.”
Kole shrugged nonchalantly. Brandie gestured towards the mess hall.
They began to walk back, albeit slowly. Kole wasn’t exactly a fast walker. With every step, Brandie got a bit further ahead, and with every step, Quinn matched Kole’s pace more and more.
Kole gave a nod. “So. Quinn. Satisfy my curiosity. Why are you not mad? Randomly doing that... well I’d be angry.”
Quinn felt like he was being tested. Like there was some sort of answer he had to give, and he had no idea which one was correct.
“I... I trust you?” Quinn asked, unsure of his answer.
Kole snorted. “Why?”
Quinn had given the wrong answer. He knew it.
“Because…” Quinn sputtered. “You told me the truth! About my test, when no one else did!”
Kole stopped walking. “What makes you think I told you the truth?”
Quinn frowned, as he dug his feet into the ground. “I... what do you mean?”
“What makes you think I told you the truth? I could have just made all of that up off the top of my head. Are you a mind reader?” Kole asked.
“No.”
“Then how?”
Quinn blinked. “Did you lie?”
“Nope,” Kole replied cheerfully. “But you have no way of knowing if that’s a lie too. Funny how that works, right? I could have killed the real Kole, taken her place, faked a disease as an excuse to not show my face, and no one would ever know.”
That... was a terrifying thought. The worst part was how it could be true. Quinn shook his head. He was being ridiculous. There were safety measures for this type of thing.
“Your magic,” Quinn pointed out. “Your magical inclination would be different.”
“What if my magical inclination is body snatching, and stealing their powers? I could pass. Void, I wouldn’t even have to be me. I could be anyone. I could snatch the body of your Head Teacher person, or of some poor sap down the street. It’s not limited to the freak in the bandages.” Kole began walking again as she wove her tale of paranoia and deceit.
“But... why? Why would anyone do that?” Quinn asked.
Kole smiled. It was hard to tell, but up close, her eyes narrowed in just the proper way to imply it.
“Oh come on, that’s an answer you have. What have you been told since day one? What’s the number one rule of being a ward?” Kole asked coolly.
“Don’t attempt to practice magic on your own. You will explode and you will die,” Quinn recited dully.
“Yeah. Think about it. They always have stories of little children learning, and blowing the entire Academy to bits. Could you imagine what would happen if someone was ambitious enough to weaponize it?”
Now it was Quinn’s turn to stop walking. He felt the blood drain out of his face. He had... never considered that. The thought made so much sense now but…
“But then! But then you were wrong before!” Quinn snapped.
“Eh? I was wrong? News to me,” Kole said dismissively, now slightly ahead of Quinn.
“If what you said about us being enslaved was true before… then the government would have no qualms about using us as bombs!” Quinn spoke quickly.
“What do you think happens to the wards who are sent to farms?” Kole said darkly.
Quinn’s eyes widened, but before he had time to process the information, Kole broke down into hysterics.
“Aha! OK no that’s not true at all. Oh man, you should have seen your face! You actually believed me! For a split second you were willing to accept that this was one giant conspiracy of sending defective warlocks to their doom!” Kole cackled cruelly. “That was great!”
Quinn shifted uncomfortably. “So then… what’s your point to all of this? Just to lie to me more?”
“What’s my point—oh yeah, sorry, I layered like five or six points in there. So in reverse order, the amount of warlocks unable to train in magic is actually criminally small. Warlocks unable to interact with society is the bigger problem, but no one is addressing it because they’re more afraid of everyone blowing up. Warlocks exploding is not a myth, but it's not as scary as people think it is. You get two or three warlocks who blow up with an explosion inclination over the course of a few centuries, and suddenly every warlock is a ticking time bomb. Most don’t even explode. Just get blood clots and die. Not nearly as dramatic, unless you’re the housekeeper, I guess. Cannot actually be weaponized. However, they keep it around as a good fear tactic, and to be fair, if you do have a combat-orientated inclination, you could just end up killing someone without training.”
Kole took a deep breath, and for a moment Quinn thought she was done, but he was sorely mistaken.
“Now that’s two points done, I think. The third! Why I would want to hypothetically waste a lot of skills all for the sake of kidnapping a small child. Well, a small teenager. The head exploding is a waste of time, but the fact is, even if you do have the silliest most inane skill around, you will most likely have a skill that only a dozen or so other warlocks have. And warlocks make up, what, less than one percent of the country’s population? That makes you a statistical anomaly just by virtue of existing. Even if all you could do was turn your hair pink, I could concoct SOME scheme around having a kid that has to listen to my fantastical whims.
“And then there is the final point. Of me lying. Well. I think that one was self explanatory. Trust no one. Be self-reliant. Punch random people on the street. They could be demons in disguise. All that fun stuff.” Kole finished her speech just as they entered the mess hall. Quinn was beginning to suspect she just liked to listen to herself talk.
He sat down with the other wards. Seeing them again was… strange. It had only been half an hour to an hour at most, and he felt as if his entire worldview had been turned upside down.
Well... not turned upside down. It hadn’t been reversed. Just... dropkicked across a field and drowned in mud for a while. That was a more adequate metaphor, Quinn decided.
The first names called were Asim of Trell and Kay of Haldon. That was going to be a weird thing when he left. He would have to start introducing himself as “Quinn of Haldon.” In Haldon, no one bothered using it, because everyone was from Haldon.
It’s a good thing there wasn’t another Quinn in the city. Although what if there was? They couldn’t be a warlock or anything, but there might be some normal person from Haldon walking around whose name was Quinn. He didn’t know how he felt about that.
