"Sure. Grandad tried in the past, and I’ve had infusions from other Magics just as an experiment, but none worked. Of course, we didn’t have a conduit. You think that’s the difference?"
"Could be. My breed of elf, the kind that can conduct, are rare these days and we’re nearly absent in American communities, so that’s not surprising. But I think it’s more to do with Cassie’s strength."
"So why doesn’t it work on my parents?"
Rafi shrugged one shoulder. "Don’t know. Like Dr. Dunwiddle said, it could be that their cells have forgotten how to hold onto magic. Some is getting in, though, from what I hear."
"Yeah, it’s sticking, then vanishing. Like it’s just being sucked out of them."
Tobey and Rafi looked at me.
"I haven’t been near them except when Dr. D has allowed it. I want them better." I could still feel where Rafi’s fingers had gripped my arm. It reminded me of the question I’d been too afraid to ask Olivia.
"What’s previous non persona mean?"
"That’s a bit advanced, even for you," said Rafi.
"That’s not an answer. I’m not planning on doing it. It was done to me."
"Ah, so she went through with accusing you. For the record, I did tell her it was pointless. Anyway, the Previous Spell on its own makes the last spell a Magic performed happen back on him or herself. It’s one of the few spells you do while touching someone."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"With any other spell, touching someone while you’re casting it causes the spell to happen to both of you. Say, you’re doing a Stunning Spell while grabbing someone’s arm. Well, you’ll stun them, but unless you’ve been trained to resist it, you’ll also stun yourself.
"But a Previous Spell only affects your victim by, like I said, re-casting the last spell they performed back onto them. So, if you grab my arm and say, ‘Previous,’ I’ll—" He thought a moment. "I’ll end up with the words from the note I left you written across my forehead. Make sense?"
"Yeah, but the non persona bit. What’s that about?"
"It conjures the Previous Spell, but deflects the Magic’s last incantation onto some nearby object rather than on the Magic himself. You know, just in case the last spell was a dangerous one. So, going back to my Note Charm, if you took hold of my arm and said ‘Previous non persona,’ the words would write themselves on the wall instead of my forehead.
"It’s a quick and clumsy way of finding out what spells a Magic has done. It certainly wouldn’t stand up in a court of law; the records of spells the gnomes keep make a far stronger case. So," he said, clearly ready for a change of subject, "orbs?"
Rafi twisted his hand in the same motion you use when putting in a light bulb. A Magic’s Solas Charm typically reflects their eye color — for example, mine produces a hazel orb, while Banna’s creates a blue one. However, despite Rafi’s deep brown eyes, an orangish-yellow orb appeared before him. He said it had taken months to perfect. Months during which he’d accidentally conjured quite a few black holes — only tiny ones, he assured me.
To show off his Solas prowess, Rafi spread his hands to enlarge his orb. He next brought his hands together to shrink it down to a pinpoint, which he then, with his index finger bobbing and twirling, made the pinpoint dance in loops in midair, leaving behind a trail of light that spelled out his name.
"I forgot how fun these things can be. Your turn," he said, shutting down his orb and facing Tobey.
"How?" Tobey tried twisting his hand as Rafi had, but nothing happened.
"I believe that’s Cassie’s job." I gave him a sour look. "Your magic, your student."
I thought of what Banna had told me when she had first shown me the spell. Basically, you come up with a good memory and focus that memory into a point of light. I told Tobey to think of a good memory. He stood there for several moments looking up at the ceiling as if hunting for an idea in the rafters. His lips twisted and he shook his head a few times, as if casting off a few candidates.
"It doesn’t have to be you winning the Nobel Prize or anything," I said. "Just something good. Happy."
"Yeah, I know, but I keep coming up with doing things with you. I was hoping for something better than that."
Rafi snorted a laugh.
"You’re not helping," I told him.
"Look, Tobey," said Rafi, "like she says, it doesn’t have to be anything stellar, just not something miserable. I do find it hard to believe you have any memory of Cassie that isn’t miserable, though."
I threw a gentle Shoving Charm at Rafi’s upper arm. He cried out more in surprise than pain, after which he promised to keep his comments to a minimum.
"Okay, I think I’ve got one," said Tobey.
"About time. Now concentrate on that while picturing a light. A small light, like no more than a fifteen-watt nightlight. I don’t want you blinding us."
Tobey’s face tightened. We were really going to have to work on his presentation if he wasn’t going to look like he was in constipated agony every time he did magic. Slowly, a swirling, wispy cloud of light appeared. Banna had said most beginners produce orbs that aren’t tight. This must have been what she meant.
I told Tobey he was doing well, then looked to Rafi for guidance. He made back-and-forth cupping motions with his two hands.
"Now, imagine compacting it, like you’re making a snowball."
The light cloud got looser. "How about a snowball you’re going to aim at my head. Do the hand motions."
Tobey’s face tensed, showing his frustration, but he did as I suggested and moved his hands in a cupping motion around an imaginary snowball. It took some time, but the cloud slowly came together into a circle of light with only a loose corona around it.
"Not perfect, but nearly so," I said encouragingly.
"Now, move it," Rafi said.
Tobey, who was sweating with concentration by this point got a worried look on his face. "How?"
"Yes, Cassie, how?" chimed in Rafi.
"A Shoving Charm, I guess. A gentle one, this isn’t a heavy object, it won’t need much."
"Two spells at once?" Tobey’s orb began to loosen.
"Go on, you can do it," I said. "Tighten that back up and make it move. An orb’s not going to do you much good if you can’t get it to cast light where you need."
Tobey inhaled deeply through his nostrils, made the poopy face, then made the cupping motions. The orb formed more tightly this time. There was no corona, just a sphere of light the size of a golf ball. "Good," I said quietly. "Now a little push." Tobey moved his hands up, extended his index finger, and made a motion like he was poking something.
The orb shifted. Only about three centimeters, but it was a start.
"Take a break," I told him. "Can we get donuts?" I asked Rafi.
"Not until you show us yours. You’re still learning this too, you know."
Since I’d done the spell a few times, I didn’t have to go through the steps of conjuring a memory, focusing it, or any of that novice stuff. What I did have to do, what I kind of had issues with, was keeping the orb from radiating heat. An orb is supposed to be nothing but light. More efficient than an LED bulb, it should give off no warmth. Mine, well, they tended to be a little toasty.
I closed my eyes and pictured the orb. It appeared without any problem, but the instant I made it, I could feel the heat on my face. The center of the thing was the same rich green Tobey’s had been, reflecting the hazel of my eyes. But it also had sparks of red jumping from it.
"Think of ice," Rafi suggested. I tried, but only ended up producing puffs of steam as the ice sizzled from my sparks.
"Not working."
"Maybe your memory is too warm?" Rafi suggested. He had a point. When I’d first done the Solas Charm, I’d produced an orb even Banna was impressed by. It was compact and emitted no heat. The memory I’d used had been of Tobey helping me
clean up my apartment. A good memory of unexpected friendship, but a rather neutral one that was made good only in relation to the terrible stuff that had happened just before.
But I couldn’t get that memory to stick during my latest efforts. The memory that kept rising first in my mind was of Alastair, of the kiss he’d surprised me with after I passed my first magic test. As Rafi had guessed, the image was far too warm.
I tried to come up with a different memory, but ones of Alastair wouldn’t stay away. The orb grew warmer. His voice becoming more worried than encouraging, Rafi offered tips. Then the thought broke through of what the Mauvais might be doing to Alastair while I was playing around teaching Tobey. My orb disappeared entirely.
"I can’t do this," I said.
Rafi stood up and strode over to stand face to face with me. He took my hands and stared into my eyes.
"Ah, now I see why your orbs are so fiery," Rafi teased. He then spoke more gently, "He’ll be okay. We’ll get to him."
"You can’t know that," I said, tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
"No, I can’t. But you found your parents against all odds. We’ll find Alastair. Am I guessing that you no longer think he’s a fiend?" I nodded. "Good. Now, chin up." He let go of my hands and chucked me lightly on the chin. "Let’s make an orb that won’t burn the place down, shall we? A little cooler memory, perhaps."
I pulled through the files in my head and came up with a recent one of Pablo nudging me with his chin and purring louder than a leaf blower.
The orb appeared. A tight cluster of hazel green that seemed to pulse in time to the rhythm of Pablo’s purrs.
"And the Teacher of the Year Award goes to Rafi," Rafi said, mocking the overly enthusiastic voice of a sports announcer. He walked up to the orb, holding his hands out. "Hardly any heat. Better. Much better. Now, let’s have some fun with these things."
It took some practice with Tobey, but after about an hour he could move his orb around with a fair amount of efficiency. My orb was staying relatively cool even as I experimented with bringing in warmer memories, as Rafi called them.
After a plate of donuts was summoned and consumed, we tried a game of follow-the-leader with the three orbs in which we had to follow the front orb’s every motion. This was difficult for Tobey as he didn’t have the same control as Rafi or I did and his orb kept charging past ours.
We finished up with both Rafi and me making a second orb, pulling all of our orbs into tight balls, lining up the five points of light with Tobey’s in the middle, and swinging out the end orb to send a wave that made the orb at the opposite end swing out while the middle three stayed in place.
"Just what the bored CEO needs for his desk," Rafi said.
I didn’t respond. Watching those balls swinging back and forth, seeing that they had a connection even without any visible ties, gave me an idea of how I might get to the Mauvais.
32 - SHORT CONNECTIONS
THE CLACKING ORBS, plus everything I’d read at the library the previous day, had filled my head with an image of portals connecting together, influencing each other without ever touching. And that image might just get me around the problem of creating a long-distance portal to the Mauvais.
A long-distance portal, also referred to as a deep portal, essentially required taking a person apart in one place and putting them back together in another. Not something I wanted to attempt. But short-distance portals were different. As Morelli had told me, instead of taking one big leap, you could link shorter portals together to hop your way to a destination. Even better, these shallower portals involved a separate principle of magical physics that didn’t involve dismantling a human down to the molecular level.
And if I could create a string of short-distance portals, I could get to wherever the Mauvais was.
Okay, granted, I still didn’t know where that might be exactly, but at least I was getting a plan ready just in case. Which is more than any of the others seemed to be doing. After all, even with their combined power, their experience, and their access to magical information, HQ wasn’t exactly rallying the troops with any sense of urgency.
And they wondered why I kept taking matters into my own hands.
I mean, look who figured out — in only a couple weeks, mind you — that Vivian wasn’t on the up and up. Sure, I hadn’t exactly realized she was the Mauvais before I confronted her, but I’d also found my parents on the slimmest of clues. Again, there’d been complications I hadn’t exactly foreseen, but at least I had solved these problems while the other Magics had been doing little more than twiddling their thumbs.
So while Olivia and the others went about things in their usual slow and plodding way, perhaps stopping along the way for a lengthy lunch and a nap, I was more than ready to jump into a fighter jet and speed my way toward figuring out where the Mauvais was holed up with Alastair.
There was just the minor problem that, just as I didn’t know how to fly a fighter jet, I didn’t know how to make any type of portal — short- or long-distance. Well, and the fact I might be extracted at any moment. Details, details.
Unable to keep my ideas to myself, as soon as Tobey and I began heading up the stairs and were well out of ear shot of Olivia’s office, I told him my theory of connecting up a series of short-distance portals.
"We should try it out," he said excitedly. His enthusiasm was a change from his previous prickly attitude toward me, but at that moment I wasn’t sure it was a change for the better. Theory was one thing. Putting it into practice was another. Especially when one wrong move could have Olivia rushing up to my room and whipping the magic out of my neurons.
"But I don’t know how to make one portal let alone several of them."
"I think you should just try the deep portal."
"Brilliant idea. Do you want to be the lab rat for that experiment?" Tobey didn’t answer. "I thought not. A deep portal is out of the question."
"But you think shallow ones are possible?"
"Maybe. From what I read, creating a portal basically involves using the physics side of magic to bring the two areas as close together as possible. The portal itself serves as a connector. But that connector is different based on the depth of the portal. That’s why when you step from MagicLand— sorry, from Rosaria to regular Portland, it’s not much different than walking from one room to another. But when you travel from Portland to London, you feel it more keenly."
"Yeah, and if you do it too often, it messes up your sense of time," Tobey said as we entered my room. "Fiona’s been going back and forth, and she keeps complaining about feeling like everything’s twenty minutes off." This sounded vaguely familiar, but Tobey didn’t give me time to dwell on it. "So, can you do a short one?"
"Maybe. I mean, it’s worth a try, right? All I need to do is fold the two places together."
"You lost me."
I grabbed a piece of paper from my nightstand. On one half of the paper I wrote British Museum. On the other half I wrote Tower of London. "We have two places. A shallow portal joins them like so." I folded the sheet in half so the words met. "A deep portal is way more complicated, but if we add in another place," I jotted Buckingham Palace at the bottom of the sheet and folded that up so it overlapped the other words, "we’ve added another layer. And if I thread a string through these places, they’d be connected. Just like a portal."
"And you’re able to do that?"
"Nope. Not that I know of anyway. But from what I’ve seen, half of doing magic involves visualizing what you mean to do." I held up the paper. "I’ve got my visual guide."
"Then let’s do this," Tobey said, hopping up from the bed and slapping his hands together like we were about to run outside and toss the old pigskin around. Despite my phobia of all team sports, playing football sounded like the more appealing option compared to experimenting with portal creation. But, there was Tobey egging me on. "Come on, Cassie, let’s try a shallow portal
."
"I think I liked you better when you despised me." I paused, thinking of how to go about this, and regretting mentioning anything to Tobey. "All right, you go in the bathroom and shut the door. I’ll see if I can get there."
Tobey went into the bathroom and latched the door. I concentrated on folding my room, imagining a straw between the two areas as I drew my hand in a circle. I know I’d admonished Tobey numerous times for it, but apparently there is some finger waggling in more advanced magic spells. Then, recalling a note jotted in the margins of one of the books in the library, I said, "Locus unitus."
On the eighth circle, a glowing ring formed in front of me. One of the books had said it should only take three circles, but maybe that came with practice. I wasn’t sure about sticking any body parts into my creation, so I took the piece of paper, wadded it into a ball, and chucked it through the portal.
The Untangled Cassie Black Page 21
