The Cost of Magic

by S T G Hill

  Then Aurelius opened the door and they stepped out into the familiar layout of the Magister's Hall.

  Once more a dizzy twist of deja vu hit Ellie. In her mind's eye she saw the students who studied here. Saw them walking along in their robes or their street clothes, books and laptops and notes floating in ordering piles along with them.

  The present whisked all those ghosts away. The hall was mostly empty. Their footfalls echoed up and down its length.

  Ellie stared around. "I thought I'd never see any of this again... Where are we going, anyway?"

  Aurelius walked with the assistance of his staff, which tapped sharply against the marble. He glanced at her. Then they both winked down to the end of the hall.

  "As I am given to understand, you no longer have any of your magic. But if you are to be Omenborn once more, we're going to have to help you get them back."

  Ellie had started pushing the door open to the quad. She stopped when he mentioned the Omenborn and looked back at him with wide eyes.

  He waved her questions away. "Yes, I know. I know, and I am sorry that I didn't help before all this," he motioned, indicating the state of the world, "But, I recall telling you that life wasn't done with you yet, Miss Ashwood. And it still isn't."

  Ellie pulled the door open. Fresh air and sunlight rushed in around her. "But what if I want to be done with it?"

  "Sometimes," Aurelius said, "We aren't given any choice in the matter."

  Ellie thought of that strange, dark presence that lurked within her and shivered.

  Chapter 14

  They arrived at the library. Inside, Ellie saw a familiar form hunched over the opened pages of an enormous book.

  "Sybil!" Ellie rushed forward while Cassiodorian waited with the stacks.

  Sybil pushed up from her seat and caught Ellie in her arms. They hugged for a long time, not saying anything.

  "I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Ellie said, the side of her face squashed against Sybil's shoulder.

  "Me neither," Sybil replied.

  With reluctance, they released each other.

  Ellie's stomach stirred with dismay when she actually looked at her friend.

  As with the others, Sybil looked older. The baby fat had disappeared from her cheeks. And now that Ellie thought about it, her friend also felt thinner in that hug.

  The eyes were the worst, though. Despite Sybil's immediate happiness her eyes told a different story.

  A world-weary story of hardship and experiences earned far too early.

  Ellie had seen a lot of that in the foster system. Seeing it here, worn by all these people she knew, cut her deeply.

  More, Sourcewell itself was strange. Different. Cassiodorian told her it was safe here, but it didn’t feel that way.

  The empty halls and paths and buildings seemed full of eyes that fixed themselves on her every time she turned her back on them.

  She wanted to like being back here, back at this place that once seemed like it could be the home she’d always craved. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t.

  No, it isn’t safe here. Not at all.

  It wasn’t a worry, but a certainty. Or at least it felt like one.

  "How are you doing?" Sybil asked.

  Memories and feelings swirled around in Ellie's head. She didn't want to talk about any of that now.

  "So Thorn told me you're part of his Resistance?" Ellie said.

  "A small part. I couldn't be part of Belt's war. Not with what I knew about him," she replied.

  Cassiodorian swept in behind Ellie, "Sybil is being modest. She was instrumental in aiding Thorn here at Sourcewell and the other academies."

  Sybil looked up at the aged Magister and then back down, the color blossoming in her cheeks returning her face to innocent girlhood.

  So now we've found something you don't want to talk about, Ellie though, elated to see her old friend behind that mask of experience.

  "Thorn said your magic is gone. And that you don't know where the gem is," Sybil said.

  Ellie still felt weird talking about this in front of Cassiodorian, who'd they'd tried to keep in the dark for so long. "That about sums it up."

  That shadowy presence pushed at the back of her thoughts. She pushed back.

  "Have you found anything helpful?" Aurelius said, nodding down at the tome opened on the reading table, "Though I'm not certain what there is that could be useful in Drusus' On the Spiritual Lives of Flowering Plants. A bit of a dry read, as I remember it."

  Sybil put one hand down lightly on a beautiful illustration of a rose. The illustration moved and shifted as though in a light breeze. "There's so little about the Omenborn prophecy. None of the major texts mention it at all. I guess I'm just hoping something talks about it somewhere."

  Cassiodorian glanced around the towering stacks. Ellie's skin prickled with the familiar sensation of magic.

  "I believe a certain volume has chosen to hide itself within the east wing," he frowned, "In the shelf with the monographs on reading tea leaves. Though why it would choose to spend its time there is beyond me."

  "I'll go look right away!" Sybil said, closing the tome on plants which coughed up a fair amount of dust. Then she stopped and looked at Ellie, "That is, if you don't want me to stick around?"

  "No, no. It's okay. Go," Ellie said, suddenly feeling even more useless.

  They hugged again and Sybil left to search for that book. The one she'd left on the table gave itself a quick shake like a dog coming in out of the rain and floated back to its gap on a nearby shelf.

  Ellie turned to the Magister, "Why are we here? Is there a book that can help?"

  "There probably is. I've lived a long life, Miss Ashwood, and if I may share a piece of wisdom it is this: there are few problems in life that can't be helped with the aid of a good book. But that is not why we are here.

  "Libraries are fortresses. They've always been. And, like any good fortress, there are hidden rooms. One needs only to know where to look..."

  And then, without looking, Aurelius touched a nearby shelf. Something clicked.

  The entire stack spun noiselessly, revealing a set of stairs leading downwards.

  "Isn't there a floor beneath us?" Ellie asked.

  Aurelius started down the stairs, the bottom of his staff tapping on each riser, "A pocket dimension. Bigger on the inside than the outside. Perfectly safe, I assure you."

  "And what are we doing in this... pocket dimension?" Ellie asked, peering warily down into this new room.

  "We are going to see about restoring your magic," he replied.

  Chapter 15

  Ellie glared at the thing on the table.

  She stared at it with such intensity that she thought smoke could start leaking from her ears at any moment.

  Which actually wouldn't be so bad, since it would be magical.

  "Reach deep down," Aurelius said, "Down into yourself. Into that place where the magic always comes from. For some, they feel the flow in the center of their foreheads. For others, deep in their chests, in their true heart of hearts..."

  Ellie always felt it in her chest. She willed for that electric, vital feeling to return. To spill out from that point and fill her body with the flows of magical power.

  Her pulse pounded hard past her ears. Her eyes ached. Her fingers dug into her thighs.

  But the hardboiled egg sat on the little occasional table set up in the middle of the big training room. It sat there taunting her.

  Ellie slumped forward in her chair, her shoulders relaxing. "There's nothing. I told you, nothing at all."

  "There is something. I can feel it when I try to see your mind," Aurelius tapped his staff against, "It is there. Something is blocking it."

  "We've been trying for days, though. And nothing's worked. Do you think it could be the Gem? I mean, I did touch it. Right before everything."

  The two of them had spent barely any time anywhere but that secret room.

  So far Aurelius had
tried returning her magic with a spell of his own (which made her skin tingle but not much else). He'd tried making the room boiling hot and then freezing cold. He'd had her stand on her head. He'd had her sing and dance.

  All failures.

  "It seems likely," he replied.

  Ellie pushed up from her chair, wincing as a knot in her back loosened. "What is the Gem, anyway?"

  Aurelius glanced down at a spot on the floor and a wingback chair sprung into being. He leaned the staff against it and then sank down onto the cushion.

  "The Gem of Orlyon was always considered apocryphal—something people believe exists but probably doesn't. Sort of like a parable for magical power. As such, no serious scholar ever paid it much mind. To many it was just a vague reference in the most ancient of texts. Although its existence now explains a great deal about Darius Belt's power...

  "As to what it may be, I can only conclude that it is a magical reliquary."

  "A what?" Ellie said, still pushing at the small of her back to ease the muscles there.

  Aurelius took the staff and laid it across his lap. "An object into which a sorcerer places a portion of their own magical power to preserve it. In some cases, they imbue these objects with their very souls.

  "Take this for instance," he hefted the staff, "This is the Staff of Tiresias, a powerful sorcerer who lived and died more than a thousand years ago. Before his death, he gifted the staff with a great portion of his magic. So much that comparatively few sorcerers can wield it."

  Ellie remembered the giant spectral dragon that Cassiodorian conjured to cleanse the campus of the Errant attack.

  That felt like a lifetime ago to her.

  "So that's what this gem is? Was Orlyon a sorcerer too, then?"

  Aurelius paused, his eyes glazing and then glowing gently. They cleared and he looked at her. "It must be. I fear that I cannot see the Gem's past. It is obscured, perhaps due to incredible age or even its own will. If Orlyon was a sorcerer, and if Belt prizes the Gem so much, he must have been a sorcerer of almost unimaginable power."

  Ellie sat back down on her own chair, doing her best to not go over to the occasional table and smash the egg with her bare hands, "Don't take this the wrong way, but prognostication doesn't seem like the most useful school of magic."

  Aurelius smiled, "It is the most complicated and the most difficult to master. As well as the rarest for a student to be powerful in, just as channeling is the most common."

  "What's it like? To see the future or the past?" Ellie said. Her own brushes with prognostication were always maddeningly vague.

  "The past is not difficult, so long as it no one has deliberately obscured it," he said, "The future? If I concentrate, I could tell you with great certainty what will happen in the next few seconds. Maybe even a minute or two. Beyond that, the possibilities multiply almost to infinity."

  "Multiply?" Ellie asked.

  His smile remained, "No matter what anyone might tell you, the future is never set. It's a constant swirl of circumstance, coincidence, and chance. It's like a tree or a highway, constantly branching off. The further you seek to see, the more possibilities present themselves."

  Ellie digested this, recalling seeing Thorn's fate at the hands of the Minotaur. That had seemed pretty clear to her.

  It seemed nothing acted like it should with her. Not even magic.

  Aurelius planted the bottom of the staff on the floor and levered himself up. As he did, the chair he'd conjured disappeared with a sudden light pop.

  "I think that perhaps now would be a good time for a break."

  "And then more testing?" Ellie's chest squeezed at the thought.

  "Without knowing the exact nature of the block on your magic, we need to try as many stimuli as we can until we find one that causes a response. Shall we see what the cafeteria has decided to serve today?"

  Ellie started following him, then turned back, "One sec!"

  She ran over to the table and grabbed the hardboiled egg. She rolled it against the table, relishing the crunching of the shell. She peeled the fragments away and ate the egg in two quick bites.

  That's what you get, she thought.

  ***

  Neither Aurelius nor Ellie paid any mind to the white-haired man they walked past on their way out of the library.

  Why would they? The charm that changed Ellie's appearance held. No one had any reason to suspect Ellie of being anything but an assistant or pupil of the Magister.

  No one except for the watcher. For the watcher knew that people were at their most vulnerable when they felt safest.

  Chapter 16

  "Come on, you nil. Do something," Matilda said.

  Glittering ropes held Ellie's body floating in midair over the floor of the training room. They coiled around her like a cocoon.

  "I can't..." Ellie said through clenched teeth. The rope squeezed her so tightly that she could barely breathe, let alone talk.

  "You better, unless you want to pass out," Matilda said. She smiled, clearly enjoying this far too much.

  Ellie spared a glance for Cassiodorian, who watched impassively.

  "You said that something happened when you first returned. That something fended off the men trying to hurt you. It is reasonable to assume that mortal danger may trigger your magic," Cassiodorian said.

  If that's what hurt those guys, Ellie thought.

  It was difficult to think. Her head swam, her brain not getting enough air.

  And she still didn't feel any power, any magic. And that presence inside of her didn't come to the fore like it had in that attack.

  Then again, it hadn't helped her when Belt's agent attacked them, or when Belt himself tore the wall from the Williamsons' brownstone.

  Or when Belt used his magic to—

  She closed her eyes, trying to will herself not to see it. Not to see them, or the way they slumped after.

  Her head slumped forward, inky black unconscious seething and growing from the corners of her vision.

  "Enough!" Cassiodorian said, tapping his staff against the floor.

  Matilda lowered her to the floor and dispelled the ropes. Ellie gulped a deep breath of air and swam back up from the dimness.

  "I told you it wouldn't work," Ellie said.

  Matilda shrugged, "Worked pretty well for me."

  Aurelius sighed, "I had hoped the combination of the enmity you two hold for each other and the threat she posed would be enough..." his fingers squeezed around the staff, "Perhaps the magic knows she wasn't actually threatening your life and chose not to act."

  Ellie winced at the ache in her ribs from breathing. "Felt pretty real to me. And if it was triggered by threats, then why didn't it do anything to the guy Belt had watching me. Or to Belt?"

  "Perhaps it knew then, too," Aurelius said.

  Goosebumps prickled up and down Ellie's arms. Could it really have known that Thorn's squadron would come to rescue them?

  Or that Chauncy was really... whatever he was and that he would come and stop Belt's attack?

  Then does that mean it chose to let happen what happened?

  Chapter 17

  "You're up late," Thorn said when he rounded the corner and saw her sitting at the long reading table in the library.

  Outside the impassive stars stared down at Sourcewell.

  Ellie, supporting her chin on her fist, blinked and looked up at him. "So are you."

  Thorn looked the same to her. She wondered what he looked like to anyone who wasn’t supposed know who he was.

  Once more, Ellie felt uneasy about this whole charm of disguise business. What if someone had figured it out?

  "Yeah," Thorn grabbed the back of the chair opposite her and pulled it out. He turned it around and sat on it, resting his arms against the back, "But it looks like you need some sleep."

  Ellie started to sigh. It turned into a jaw-creaking yawn. "Yeah I guess I look amazing. Thanks."

  Thorn looked at her, then down at the big old book open in fro
nt of her on the table. His jaw slid, and she heard the low grinding of his teeth.

  "You don't have to be here, you know," Ellie said, "I know you're not particularly happy with me right now."

  He rubbed at his chin and finally got his eyes back up to her face, "I'm not happy with the choice you tried to make."

  "I paid for it already. And I know you're the one who took me here, you and your guys are the ones who tried to fight Belt away, and I want to thank you for that. But can you get off my back? I'm way too tired to deal with this right now. I mean, you've been doing a pretty good job of avoiding me so far."

  Thorn didn't say anything for a while. Ellie returned her attention to the book spread open before her. It was a text on the ancient history of magic.

  The writing was stylized, and she didn't know if it was the book itself or her own exhaustion, but the letters swayed back and forth as though unwilling to let her eyes fix on them.

  "I'm sorry," Thorn said, "I'm sorry about your foster parents. I'm sorry that you lost them, and that life they gave you a taste of. But Ellie, you made the wrong choice."

  Tears brimmed in Ellie's eyes, and she blinked furiously to keep them from tumbling down her cheeks. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I see them just sort of... fall every time I close my eyes? Why do you think I'm here and not asleep in my bed?"

  Cassiodorian had given her some quarters in the Magister's Hall. To everyone still at Sourcewell and not also in the Resistance, she was nothing but some minor functionary or assistant to the great master of Sourcewell Academy.

  "You're still having the nightmares," Thorn said. It wasn't a question.

  She swallowed at the lump in her throat and looked up at him when she wrestled her tears into submission. "How do you know about those?"

  "Cassiodorian told me," Thorn replied.

  Ellie jerked as though slapped, "That wasn't something he could share."