by Logan Byrne
“Faus is a little bit of a work freak, so don’t mind him,” Charlie said, his arms crossed.
“What are you all, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked.
“Charlie is a jaguar shifter, Britta is a mage, and Faus—” Blake said.
“Faus is special,” Charlie said.
“Charlie, be nice,” Britta said, slapping him on the arm. “Faus is kind of a shifter,” she said.
“Kind of?” I asked.
“My mom was a shifter and my dad is a Minotaur,” Faus said.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked, looking around the group.
“Well, it made things…interesting. When a shifter mates with a non-shifter being, in this case something with genes as strong as a Minotaur, it makes their offspring a little unstable,” Blake said.
“I shift into a Minotaur,” Faus said.
“It’s not quite a Minotaur, and he can’t really control himself that well when he’s shifted,” Charlie said.
“It’s not his fault, Charlie. You know Minotaurs already have a hard time controlling their tempers, and Faus didn’t get the full genes. It basically means that when he shifts, which he rarely does, he becomes a wrecking ball and he has a hard time making rational thought,” Britta said, looking at me towards the end.
There was so much to the magical world that I didn’t even know, and I’d lived in it my entire life. I thought everything was so black and white, but there was a full spectrum of colors out there in between. Maybe it was easier just living my old life, being a pilt, a thief, and fending only for myself. It certainly meant less to learn.
“So what is this magical theory we’re supposed to talk about?” I asked, changing the topic. The conversation was getting a little too stuffy and heated for my taste.
“We need to come up with a solution to the scenario on this paper,” Faus said, handing it to me.
You and your partner are tracking a centaur who you believe is dealing in illegal black market goods. How do you find said centaur and bring him or her in safely and effectively?
“Can’t you just arrest it?” I asked, handing the paper back.
“Sure, just ask the centaur, the wild centaur, to come with you and it’ll all be cool,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes.
“Don’t be an ass, Charlie, you know she’s new,” Blake said, giving him a disapproving look. “Centaurs aren’t exactly known for their cooperation, that’s why they’re asking the question. First, how would you track the centaur?”
“I guess I would look for tracks? Four hoofs shouldn’t be too hard to find outside, right?” I asked.
“Good job. That’s the first stage. The second would be incorporating both environmental abnormalities, like broken twigs or scratches on trees, as well as using a tracking spell,” Britta said.
“So that’s how he found me,” I said, under my breath.
“What?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing, I was just mumbling to myself. What’s a tracking spell?” I asked.
“Well, you could use something to track somebody based on an item they touched or owned, or just a basic spell that would help you find creatures nearby. They don’t always work great, though,” she said.
“Or you could just sniff him out,” Blake said.
“I don’t think that’d work for me,” I said, smiling.
“The best way to arrest a centaur is with force,” Charlie said. “They’re ruthless beings, and like we said before, they aren’t all for rational thought.”
“In this case, I have to agree with him. Centaurs will likely attack you if they think you’re a threat, and usually your badge will make them think you’re out to get them, which in this scenario I guess you are,” Britta said.
“Is there a spell to detain them that works the best?” I asked.
“Well, a brute force approach would be a binding spell. It will make ropes or chains fire from your wand so you can tie them up and then just teleport the two of you to booking. It’s frowned upon sometimes, depending on how much force is used, but their four big legs make it difficult to do anything else,” Britta said.
“Interesting,” I said.
Britta handed me a small book. “This is a beginner’s spell book I keep with me to study. I think you’ll get more use out of it than I can anymore,” she said. The small leather book was slightly tattered on the spine, the black stain starting to rub off.
“Thank you,” I said genuinely. When I opened it I saw there were diagrams, including the proper wand technique for each spell, which I knew would come in handy. I was starting from nothing, it seemed, and maybe studying this book could mean the difference between life and death one day.
4
I spent the next two weeks studying, which was something I never thought I would do in my lifetime. After all, girls like me weren’t very studious, unless it was studying the blueprints of a store I intended to steal from.
Britta’s book had come in handy more times than I could count—it and my new but used wand came in handy during those late-night study sessions. I’d found a new sense of confidence in myself, mainly a result of wanting to do something good and to be something even better. There was always going to be a thief in me, the girl who lived on the streets and did whatever she had to do to survive, but I had to evolve if I were going to move forward with my life. I had to let my past go, no matter how deep some of those scars might run.
Mirian had been my biggest supporter. His dedication to making sure I did well didn’t go unnoticed, even if I didn’t tell him enough how appreciative I was. That sort of thing wasn’t really my style.
After training nonstop, or at least what felt like nonstop, I was doing my first trial today. The thought of it left a sour taste in my throat.
All M.A.G.I.C. students here at the camp had to do trials. It was basically a light recreation of the aptitude test that the institution would make us do to see if we had what it took to become a part of the unit. It was altered to each student, depending on the magical type, and mine was potentially going to be a bit more grueling than Blake’s.
Being a shifter lent you some leeway when it came to these sorts of things. You didn’t have to memorize spells, hexes, charms, or anything else that would leave anybody else’s head spinning. There were hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, and you had to think in an instant which spell you wanted and then you not only had to recite it correctly, but you also had to use the exact right wand movement or it might fail. Why couldn’t I have been born a shifter instead?
I was led into a room where a headset and what appeared to be a fake wand with a cable coming out of it were sitting on a table in front of me. “What’s this?” I asked, confused.
“The trials take place not in the real world, but in a virtual one. We took the technology from the mortals and made it our own,” Ms. Moon said.
“I don’t understand,” I said, picking up the headset.
“When you’re tested for the real thing, they’ll use simulations similar to this. Us training you with dummies isn’t enough these days, and if we’re to infiltrate the organization with our agents, we need to make sure they have the best possible chance to get in. You’re perfectly safe here. What you see isn’t real, and while the wand will work just fine inside the simulation, it isn’t truly real, meaning you won’t actually cast any spell you recite,” she said.
“Okay, I guess I understand,” I said, putting the headset on top of my head. “How long do I have?”
“Each scenario has a timer, which you will see on the top left corner of your screen. You will be marked down if you fail to meet the requirements within that time limit,” Ms. Moon said.
She exited the room and talked to me over a speaker. I slid the headset down over my face and picked up the wand. All I saw was black, pitch black, and then it became New York City in all its glory in front of me. People were walking around me. They looked real, as if I could reach out and touch them. Instructions appeared on the screen
.
A goblin has been trading in the black market sale of endangered magical pixies. Your job is to track the goblin down, not bringing any attention to yourself in front of the mortals, and subdue him.
I hesitantly clicked accept and turned my head, seeing everything in full view as if I were standing in the street. I looked down, waving my wand around in my hand. The device registered every movement. This was pretty cool. I looked up, seeing a thirty-minute timer counting down, and I hurried to a nearby alleyway.
I needed to keep my wits about me, staying hidden from the mortals, and try to figure out where this guy was. I knew he couldn’t have been too far away; the simulation wouldn’t make sense if he were. I thought to the book that Britta had given me a couple of weeks prior. If I wanted to find this goblin, I needed to start with clues, and since the only thing I had to go by was that he was a goblin, that was the only kind of tracking I could do.
“Procurus Goblin,” I incanted, asking my magic to guide me to a goblin. It worked. The tip of my wand glowed, the intensity of its light diminishing when I moved away from the direction of my target. I knew which way he was.
I walked out onto the street, keeping my head down. The wand waving around wasn’t drawing any attention to me whatsoever. Maybe that was how they made it. I guided myself every so often, since the spell needed to be chanted over and over, as if I were using a compass and had to keep adjusting my position. The timer had gone down from thirty, to twenty-five, and finally to eighteen as the spell led me down a seedy alleyway that screamed illegal activity. There was nobody around. I could hear sirens in the distance and water dripping from an old fire escape ladder that was bolted onto a brick wall. He was here.
I kept my guard up, my lips moving in real life as I tried to roll through my spells and figure out my best line of attack. The instructions wanted him alive, I was guessing, and I couldn’t use anything that would rough him up too badly.
The alleyway soon ended at an old door that was partially cracked open. I pushed it open and the hinges, old and rusty, squeaked. I peeked inside. The room was dark as night. I slipped inside and tried to find anything out of the ordinary.
I could hear talking as I walked, some light from upstairs seeping through a crack in the ceiling. Then I saw him, or at least it was the only goblin anywhere near here. There was an old staircase that separated the goblin from me, and I knew it wouldn’t hold my weight even though I was small.
“There’s a fix, what is it?” I asked myself, whispering so he wouldn’t hear me. I went through the book in my head, remembering a part where you could sometimes make up a spell that would only work so long as it made sense. That was my ticket up, given my limited knowledge. “To help me get up this flight of stairs, make my feet as light as air,” I whispered, waving my wand around.
Small foggy clouds circled my feet and I stepped onto the cracked wooden plank. There was no sound. It was as silent as it was before I stepped onto it. It worked! I walked upstairs, slowly, careful not to move too much. When I reached the top I saw a short hallway with a door at the end that was halfway open. I stuck to the wall like a slug, sliding along until I was close enough to peek inside. I saw pixies in cages, shaking the bars as much as they could, but to no avail. The goblin sung to himself, waddling around. Stacks of shillings sat on the table near the pixies.
The timer was almost down to ten minutes. My time was quickly running out, and I knew it was now or never. I needed to confront him. I took a deep breath, my nerves feeling very real even though all of this wasn’t. I stepped inside the room with the goblin and shouted at him.
“You are under arrest by the authority of M.A.G.I.C.,” I said. Ms. Moon had taught us that the other day.
“What! How did you find me?” he shouted, snarling and showing his sharp yellow teeth. He moved out from behind the table, his stance defensive, as if he were going to attack.
Goblins had a small of amount of magical powers, drawing the short end of the magical stick, but they could still be formidable. They were also downright mean, and I knew he would use any means necessary to make sure he survived this encounter and didn’t get taken in. I’d dealt with goblins enough times as a thief to know this.
“Resist and things will become much harder for you,” I said, gripping my wand tightly and readying myself for combat.
“Oh, I don’t plan to go with you, pig,” he said, grabbing something and throwing it at me.
“Arma Maximus!” I yelled, sweeping my wand from left to right. A shield encompassed me and the needles he threw vaporized when they hit it, making him even angrier.
I flicked my wand so chains materialized and soared towards him, but he didn’t take them lying down. He dodged them, his small body hard to hit, before he climbed onto the table and kicked the cages of pixies off. They yelled, their high-pitched voices sounding squeaky, and he ran for the only other exit in the room. “Stop!” I yelled.
I ditched the room, figuring I’d come back for the pixies, as I chased him out onto the adjacent rooftop. My minutes were disappearing. I swore the clock was accelerating as my wand flicked and I tried everything to catch him. I shot out a chain but he jumped to the next rooftop, trying anything to get away.
“What do I do?” I asked myself, huffing and puffing for air, my lungs feeling spent. I was down to two minutes, my legs felt burnt out as if I were really running, and I wasn’t gaining any distance on the goblin. Just when I thought it was over, though, suddenly it wasn’t. I remembered a spell that could work, but it required precision.
I stopped, my wand and arm locked straight out, before I yelled it, circling the wand around and flicking it at the end. “Pacificate!”
The bolt of light hit him and his body went down. I ran over and saw the timer stop. A green block of text came up, saying “Passed.” I jumped for joy and the simulation started to disappear. I did it; I’d passed my first real test.
“Great job, Lexa,” Mirian said, greeting me after I came out of the room.
“Thank you, Mirian. I can’t believe I completed it,” I said, still out of breath.
“How would you feel about trying the next trial?” he asked, his eyebrow raised.
“So soon? I thought there was time between them,” I said, nervous.
“There is, normally, but you’re progressing so quickly and we wanted to give you the chance to go even faster. If you aren’t ready, it’s okay,” he said. “You’ll get to M.A.G.I.C. eventually.”
I thought about it for a second. Maybe taking the second trial was a good thing. As much as I just loved school and Ms. Moon, the quicker I finished these trials the quicker I’d get to actually join the squad and get out of here. It wasn’t that I didn’t like this place, or the people—they were all great—but I wanted more. I had a sense of invigoration from that first trial that I hadn’t felt in a long time—since my first large heist, or at least one that felt big to me.
“What does it entail?” I asked.
“It’s an aptitude test,” he said.
“So nothing physical?” I asked, my breath starting to calm.
“Not in the slightest. You will take a written test that encompasses spells, history, rules, and regulations, as well as scenario situations. A passing grade is a must to progress to the third and final trial,” he said.
“What if I fail this?” I asked. I wasn’t exactly prepared for that.
“Then you’ll try again in a couple weeks after you’ve had time to prepare more,” he said.
“I’ll do it,” I said, throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to better my situation. I figured if I said no I wouldn’t try again for at least two weeks anyway, so trying now and failing wouldn’t waste any time. Besides, it would give me an advantage by helping me figure out what to study so the next test wouldn’t be as hard.
I was led into a room thirty minutes later after eating and resting to recover from the severity of the first trial. I wasn’t alone. A few of my classmates, unfortunately includ
ing Lyon, were there as well. I guess they were further along on their trials than I knew.
“You will all have one hour to complete the second trial. You will find a multitude of questions covering an array of topics. Some multiple choice, some fill-in-the-blank, and some short answers. The only help given will be for clarification on questions, nothing else. Once I ring the bell, you may begin,” a woman said from the front of the room.
I hadn’t seen her before. Her skin was pale, her hair dark, and her body thin. She looked a little dead, but maybe it was just her eyes in this light. I tried not to pay too much attention and instead picked up my pencil, wrote my name, and waited for the signal. “Begin,” she said, ringing the bell.
I opened the first page, a sheet of multiple-choice questions. This was the first real test I’d ever taken, and it was exactly what I thought it would be—overwhelming. I kept my wits about me, staying calm, and worked through the situations and problems to the best of my ability.
I scratched my head a few times, leaving a couple questions blank. When the hour was up I’d only finished about eighty percent of the test, at best. “Shit,” I mumbled under my breath.
The woman came and collected our tests before guiding us out of the room and back into the madness of camp. “How did you do?” Lyon asked after we stepped outside.
I couldn’t tell if he was genuine or smug, but I assumed smug with him. I thought he just wanted to prove his superiority over me. “Not sure, how about you?” I asked.
“Oh, I did fantastic, my study guides were impeccable. It’s a shame you can’t use them, I think they’d really help a girl like you,” he said, smirking.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Word around camp is that you’re just a lowly thief, and a pilt at that,” he said, his tone quickly evolving from stupid to threatening.
“So maybe it isn’t a good idea to piss off the thief, then, is it?” I asked, snarling a little.
“You wouldn’t do a thing,” he said, getting closer to me.