by Elon Vidal
Damon followed her lead, and his grip on her hand tightened with each step they took. His sweaty palm felt uncomfortable against hers, but she never let him go. She was surprised when they entered the room and the Enlightened were already seated. It made their entrance that much more difficult with twelve pairs of eyes on them. Judging them and finding them wanting.
Damon snatched his hand away and both of his behind his back as he stood with his head bowed. Good for him, she thought, because at least one of them could show regret.
"So," Gael's voice filled the place, "you have decided to take permanent residence here."
Dawn couldn't help but smile at that, the old man knew how to weaponize sarcasm? Good to know.
"Your invitation was impossible to resist," she said, not missing the sharp intake of breath from Damon.
He probably thought she was out of her mind and was going to get both of them killed or something worse. Like ex-communicated.
"Where is Elijah?" the elder asked.
"He isn't feeling well," Dawn replied simply.
"The three of you deliberately went against the rules made to protect you, and now here we are. Your friend has lost his magic, something you can never comprehend."
At that, Dawn hung her head because the elder was right. She had misjudged and miscalculated, wanting to believe she was so much better and could go at it alone. Wanting to bend the rules without much regard for them or really and understanding of their place. And now her friend was suffering as a result.
"We cannot give him his magic back," said Gael, the deep-voiced elder who had questioned her the first time around. This made Dawn look back up immediately.
"Please, there must be a way."
"Giving someone magic is the equivalent of giving someone life; it simply cannot be done. We accept the gift given to us at birth, we do not work for it or get it through spells."
"Elijah didn't lose his magic, it was taken from him. There must be something we can do to reverse the spell. Please," she said. “You have to send people to find Fisher, we know who he is now and surely there is something you can do.”
"We cannot sacrifice warriors for the sake of one boy. Sending them into a battle they are not prepared for because of your own stupidity."
"Are you not even a little bit concerned that someone with the power to take a warlock's magic is out there? Doing gods know what with that magic?"
"I find it peculiar that a child such as yourself believes she can question how we do things. And attempts to act like she has all the answers when she created the problem."
Dawn clenched her jaw. Gael was right, after all, and she was not here to make enemies out of the Enlightened, but rather to get help from them.
"You ought to be punished for what you did. Not only did you seek out trouble you cannot handle, but you did so with the help of Wiccans!"
"I-"
"Do not deny it, you reek of them!" Ezekiel's voice boomed, effectively cutting Dawn off.
She had never felt so small in her life, and she finally understood what it meant to be insignificant.
"Blame it on her human nature, they tend to be rather selfish and impulsive. Never thinking of the bigger picture," one of the elders said.
Gael nodded. "There is nothing either of you can or will do. You cannot make this right, and any attempt to will lead you onto a dark path you do not want to become involved in."
Did that mean there was dark magic that could help? Dawn kept that information tucked away for future reference.
"And Damon, such a promising young warlock. We are terribly disappointed that you were involved in this. Not only did you endanger two young charges in your care, but you have brought us to the unprecedented situation."
"It wasn't his fault," Dawn cut in, making Damon subtly shake his head at her.
She ignored him and looked straight ahead. "I asked for his help, and I was going to go whether he helped or not. He was there to protect me, which he did well. We just didn't know that Elijah was the target all along. If anyone is to blame then it is the man who stole Elijah's magic, and we should all be trying to find him."
"Oh, how wonderful of you to give us direction," Ezekiel said.
"I apologize, and I don't mean to be disrespectful-"
"Yet somehow you excel at it."
Dawn sighed. Elijah's grandfather had every right to be mad at her, but this was not the time to be fighting.
"With all due respect, there is a man out there we should all be focused on. I think he is tied to everything that has been going on-"
"We will find this man and he will be dealt with," Gael said firmly.
Dawn frowned, resisting the urge to point out that if it hadn’t been for them, the Council might still not know Fisher's identity. Sometimes you had to think and work outside the box or discard the box completely. The Council was the box in this case, and at this rate they were never going to find a way to help Elijah. And that was all that mattered, finding Fisher and making him reverse the spell.
"We have faced great evils before, and we would not be standing here if order didn't prevail. You are young and rash, you believe there are no consequences to your actions. But for everything you do, there is a consequence. And the price you pay is never anything pleasant."
"You said this was unprecedented?" Dawn asked. "Then how can we be sure the same solutions will work?"
"You are not here to question us, child. Your friend is not the only concern we have as a council. There are many matters that need our attention and a lot of people who need protection."
If they were so busy then maybe this meeting was not good use of their time, Dawn thought. She would have to find Fisher and help Elijah by herself.
"And you, warlock? Such disrespect of the power given you and the trust your elders put in you. What have you to say for yourself?"
"I apologize and accept whatever fate you deem fit for my actions," Damon replied with his head still bowed.
"Please, don't," Dawn said, looking at Gael. "Don't punish him."
She took a step closer to Damon and took her hand in his. This time she wouldn’t let go.
The Enlightened looked at each other in silence for a while, probably deciding Damon's fate. Dawn's tightened her grip on his hand, feeling her palms warming up.
"A year with a sealing spell."
"No!" Dawn burst out. "Please. You can’t do that to him."
"No? A year without magic is not a worthy penance for your friend who is now doomed to the same fate for the rest of his life?" Ezekiel asked.
What about her then, she wondered. She had no magic to take away. Damon squeezed her hand lightly as if to ensure her that it would be alright.
“We are in agreement, a year is more than lenient,” Gael said, then he rose.
They seriously couldn’t be doing this, Dawn thought as her grip on him further tightened. Damon did not deserve such a punishment. They needed to save their wrath for Fisher, not take it out on the people trying to help.
“Hold out your right hand,” continued Gael, seemingly expecting the warlock to gesture as requested.
Damon did so calmly, and a light engulfed his wrist, leaving a mark similar to Dawn’s as Gael chanted the spell.
“It is done.”
Damon bowed his head and the elders all stood.
“Do not fret, young one. We will find this Fisher, but please do not meddle again. Or your friends’ magic will not be the only thing you cost them.”
The Council left the room, leaving Dawn to fuss over Damon.
“Let me see!” she said, even though it would do no good.
The three-stripes mark was there, and it was permanent unless the person who cast the spell removed it.
“I’m so sorry Damon,” she said, her voice betraying the tears she was trying to blink back.
His jaw clenched. “Let’s go.”
They walked out in silence, all the way on the elevator ride until they got back outside.
And then Dawn lost it.
TWELVE
“How could they just do that to you?" Dawn exclaimed as soon as they were outside.
"Dawn-"
"You can’t protect yourself without magic and right now we need someone with magic on our side."
"Dawn-"
"We need all the ammunition we can get against Fisher. We need to protect Elijah."
"Dawn!" Damon's voice finally registered, and she stopped pacing.
He smiled and she looked at him in confusion. What was he so happy about? Had he lost his mind together with his magic too?
"Look," he said, then held out his hand. A spark resembling fairy dust hovered over his palm and gracefully, a lotus flower magically arose from it.
The same hand that now bore a sealing mark like hers.
She took the flower and looked at him in surprise. "But how?"
Damon laughed and ran his hand through his hair. "I think it's you," he said.
"Me?"
"I knew something was wrong when I could still feel my magic after they cast the spell on me. I had no idea what a sealing spell felt like, though, so I couldn’t be too sure until we got outside, and I tried a simple spell."
Dawn looked at him, still wondering what it all meant and what it had to do with her. Did this warlock play too much with dark magic? Had she trusted him to her peril? Did the Council not know they had too many loopholes in their own tricks?
"You were holding my hand, and I felt your energy as they put the sealing spell on me,” Damon continued. “You must have made me immune somehow, the same way that you are."
Dawn looked at her hands and wondered if she could have protected Elijah from the same fate. But it was too late to think of that now, and it seemed like the power inside her was useful after all.
"Well, I don't know how we managed to get that past the Council's watchful eyes but we probably shouldn't stick around here to find out." The front garden would’ve been a cozy place to hang out for a while if they weren’t trying to make themselves scarce from the Council for the time being.
"You are right. And since we are already in trouble, we might as well make a home run out of it."
Dawn grinned. "You read my mind."
"No Wiccans this time, just a good old-fashioned visit to the Djinn library."
Dawn groaned, "I'm not looking forward to this."
"Djinns do take some getting used to, don't they?" He chuckled. "You would probably be the same way if you knew as much as they do. It makes everyone seem so ignorant and tedious."
"Whatever. What's the plan?”
She really wasn't keen on another summoning from the Council.
"Something about what you said got me thinking. Maybe we have been looking at this all wrong, the Council too, perhaps."
"What do you mean?"
Damon stepped towards the pond lining the walkway and the lotus gently levitated towards it. The stalk and roots emerged and seeped into the water while the leaves loomed around it to keep it afloat. It soon seemed as if it had belonged there all the time floating next to the other pond flowers and pads.
"They are focused on finding Fisher, right?” Damon reasoned, leaning next to the pond with his hand still extended.” And what he is up to. But not on what Fisher has found already."
"Like where he's been will tell us where he is going?" Dawn continued along the same line of deduction, as she took a couple steps toward him.
"Maybe. Can't hurt to try, right? Whatever he has stolen and whatever has happened since then has to be significant somehow. You said it yourself that he was planning something, so everything he is doing is linked to some big plan."
"Including Elijah," Dawn said, thinking of how this might just work.
"Exactly. Let’s think for a second. Without consulting any djinn or the Council, what do we know about Elijah?"
Dawn thought about that. Her friend was a warlock, a new recruit with the First Guard and very good with spells. He was also the boy she had kissed. Not that it was relevant in any way, but it was something at the back of her mind that she was dreading having to face after this. She repeated only her first three points, this time out loud to Damon, who nodded.
"But you are forgetting one more important thing. His grandfather sits on the Council."
"Right, as have several others from his family before him."
The glint in Damon’s eyes told her that he believed they were onto something concrete, and she allowed herself to hope again after that disastrous meeting with the Council.
They took a taxi to the library, not wanting to raise any suspicions in case anyone close by was watching them. Of course, Damon complained about it the whole ride there and Dawn discovered she was getting quite good at dealing with spoiled warlocks.
From the outside, the Djinn library was nothing special. Unpretentious and unremarkably small, it was filled with old and second-hand books. Yet Damon knew his way around and they walked towards the back where a lady behind a counter was seated next to a door with a sign hanging over it that reminded access through the door was reserved for staff only. To enter one needed a sealing spell. Else of course, if you ever made your way in without it, Damon explained to her, you’d just walk into a storage space with a coffee area and an admin office.
The lady was no ordinary clerk either. She was a witch indeed. Dawn couldn’t contain a chuckle as the witch at the desk looked at both of them in surprise when Damon cast the spell that revealed a couple neat djinn library passes with fine engravings similar to those that could be found on a djinn’s skin.
“Yeah, we brought our own,” Dawn said with a wink.
The lady looked unfazed over her glasses, scanned both their passes and granted them access to go through the door. On the other end, Dawn’s eyes widened at everything she was seeing.
The library was much bigger inside than it appeared outside, one of the beautiful things about magic. For centuries, warlocks and witches had cast spells to hide in plain sight from humans who sought to hunt them. It was simple science used in light magic, how light waves were erratic in even dimension and stable in odd dimensions. Simple manipulation of these waves could make someone see a completely different picture from what was actually there. For example, a Djinn could walk into a room full of humans and not a single one of them would see the magic markings. All they would see in their dimension would be a surly being speaking in riddles.
Dawn smiled at that silly thought. Triple-story bookshelves lined the hall walls on either side with marble columns shaped around statutes of mythical creatures which emerged into arches that connected with each other. Several spaces on the right opened up to windows that let some light shine in while the left allowed for cute cave-like passageways lined with more books that Dawn could see connected a row of similar-spaces as far as she could see. The columns were heavily ornamented as if they were tree trunks leading up to ceiling where their tops expanded full of life along it and revealed an expansive magical world of dragons, djinn symbols, owls, phoenixes, and demigods.
They walked towards the central area, where another receptionist guarded behind the counter. Only this particular ‘gatekeeper’ was an adorable looking child with long curls, kind owl-like eyes, and a few djinn markings on her skin.
“We seek an audience with the librarians,” Damon said, straightening to his full height when the child looked him up and down.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“No, but we have information that might be of some interest.”
Dawn raised a brow at Damon, did they really have information of interest? He gave a look that just said to go along with it, which she did.
The child raised her left hand and made a fist, tilting her head to the side as she continued staring at Damon. They both looked at her in confusion until Damon groaned and held his stomach.
“Damon, are you okay?” Dawn said.
“Who are you?” the child said as she twisted her hand to th
e other side. “Lie to me and I will kill him.”
Damon cried out and Dawn placed her hand on his back as she glared at the child with a mixture of confusion and concern. Looks could be deceiving, it seemed.
“We are here to see the Djinn, then we will be on our way. Now please, let him go.”
“I sense magic in him, yet he has the mark. Wiccans are not allowed in here!”
“We are not Wiccan! Damon is a Warlock with the First Guard.”
“And you?”
“I’m half Fae, training with the First Guard. You can call Elder Ezekiel, he will confirm our identities.”
The girl raised a brow skeptically. Dawn internally hoped that the Djinn wouldn’t decide to actually confirm this with Ezekiel. He was last person she needed right now, even if she kinda suspected he might be keeping an eye on her. There was always a guard with them somewhere, and she didn’t know who they were directly reporting to. Were they just there to protect her if danger arose, or were they there to spy on her as well?