by Paul Duffau
“How did you do that?”
Harold laughed. “It’s a parlor trick, that’s all.”
He lifted his hand again.
“First, it’s a version of a healing spell.”
"Æsculapium?”
“Yes, very good.” He hesitated. “I don’t remember teaching you that spell.”
Dummy! Kenzie thought to herself.
“I watched you teaching some of the others when I was little,” she confessed.
He arched his left eyebrow. “You and I will need to talk,” he said, “about what you know and what you’re supposed to know. Some of the lessons are much too advanced for you yet, and the magic dangerous.” He half-turned away from her.
She tracked him and watched as a creature took shape. The murky outlines solidified into a mangy black animal with scary pretercanine eyes that burned sulfurously. The animal stood as tall as a lion and presented itself with a vulpine loll of its massive head. Kenzie stepped back as the snout swung toward her and the jaws gaped open.
“A gytrash,” explained Harold. “You can summon one to you, being magical, but the gytrash seeks to lead humans to their doom.” He beamed at her like a showman hitting the high point of his act, balancing between the trick and the audience. He waited until he had her full attention. “It can also guide the lost to the correct path.”
The gytrash’s gaping mouth curled in a canine grin. Then, it faded back to wherever Harold had summoned it from.
“That’s magic.”
Kenzie let out a lungful of air, the image still clear in her head.
“You conjured that . . . that gytrash,” she said, struggling with the pronunciation, “without a spell.” She winced, hearing an accusation where she meant amazement.
Harold cocked his head to the side. “True.”
“How?” The question tore out of her. Harold was a dear, but frustrating, and she loved the way he taught the classes. Now, with him for what seemed like a private lesson, she couldn’t curb her impatience.
“When we practice spells, we move our hands and say the words, but until we cast them, nothing happens.” He let her digest the information. “Potions are the same way. We mix all the ingredients, but the concoction stays inert until what?”
“We add magic,” Kenzie said. “I know all tha—”
“But you don’t question what it is that a wizard must add. Like following a recipe to bake a cake, all of you think”—and the diminutive man indicated the distant council with a turn of his head to remove the sting—“everyone forgets that the wizard adds a bit of himself to the process.”
He stopped and raised a finger.
“Do this,” said Harold.
She lifted her right hand and pointed up with the forefinger. It trembled like her body had before her first sparring competition at the studio. She sought her core as Jules had taught her, and the hand steadied.
Harold waited, and scrutinized her effort. “Good.”
Behind him, the globe reappeared, wobbled in a circle, and flashed out of existence.
“Do it.”
“But I didn’t see you do anything.”
Harold bent his finger down and touched the tip of hers. A jolt flowed down her finger, traced up her arm, and lit her mind. She staggered back, blinking to clear her vision.
“Feel the magic, use it to re-create the light,” Harold instructed her. “Don’t worry about spells. You saw it, felt it. Now, use that and the energy inside you.”
“What’s with the finger, then?”
“A distraction. You watched me to see a spell cast.”
Chagrined, Kenzie dipped her chin. Harold was right. Sneaky, too. She chanced a glance at his face. He had a hint of a smile. Her lip curled down, and she tried to remember the essence of the honeyed glow. Her limbs grew warm as she crafted a mental representation of Harold’s parlor trick. He said to use the energy. How do you add magic . . . ? Kenzie sought the moment of calm in casting a spell, summoned it without moving or speaking. Her hair floated away from her neck.
A pleased sigh came from the man, and Kenzie’s head jerked up. In front of her floated an orb, more daylily orange than spun gold. It popped as she lost concentration, and disappeared.
Kenzie felt a bubbling excitement grow until it overflowed her. “I did it.”
“I saw.”
She threw her arms around Harold’s neck and hugged tight. She felt Harold stiffen, and then relax.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and then wondered why she whispered.
Harold cleared his throat and Kenzie released him. A tinge of red graced Harold’s cheeks.
A murmur of voices reached her. She glanced over her shoulder. The meeting must be over, but she still had questions for Harold. It wasn’t fair that she had to leave now when she was finally learning something useful, not how to blow air around.
When she glanced back, Harold held an orange sunburst of a bloom in his hand. “A reminder,” he said, and handed it to her.
She heard the footsteps and read it in his face, before he covered up his sympathy.
Her parents.
He spoke quickly but softly. “Practice, but carefully and privately. Very few wizards are ever able to trust and touch their own magic like you did. It’s a gift. Some of the others will be jealous if they learn about it and you aren’t strong enough to defend yourself.”
Kenzie’s jaw dropped at the implication in Harold’s words. She wanted to question him, but he moved his right hand in a flat cutting-off motion to shush her.
He shifted his gaze from behind her to her face. Worry disguised itself in a smile. “Time for you to leave.”
He nodded affably in the direction of her parents and turned away. She turned around to face them, flower still in hand. Both parents glanced at it.
“You’ll have to leave the chrysanthemum here,” said her mother. She shot a hard, searching glance at the retreating Harold. “It won’t survive the transition.”
The statement startled Kenzie. She almost contradicted her mother and then squashed the thought.
It would, she knew. The necklace had.
“Yes, ma’am.”
As her parents escorted her from the Glade, she searched for a way to preserve the flower. Passing a pool of water, she stopped, forcing both of the adults to do the same.
“Just a sec,” she said, without explaining.
She carefully set the mum into the water, gently swishing the petals in the liquid to free any remaining air bubbles. Satisfied, she decorated a green-covered rock with the flower. As she stood, she touched it lightly, willing it to stay preserved until she returned.
“Really, McKenzie,” said her father. He sounded exasperated. “It’ll be gone the next time. Very little is permanent here. You know that.”
Kenzie didn’t answer, not trusting herself to lie successfully to him.
The soft grass and moss absorbed all the sound of their footsteps on the walk to the grotto to leave.
She felt a twinge of regret at abandoning the flower and hoped the gentle caress of her magic was enough.
Chapter 19
Mitch’s nose wrinkled from the acrid smell of burnt electronics.
“What the heck is the matter with you?”
“Shut up,” said Hunter. He was staring in disbelief at the control board he had painstakingly put together. The scorch marks on a half-dozen resistors obliterated the paint markings that identified them. One capacitor had exploded, leaving an uneven sooty star across the fine filaments of circuitry. A thin tendril of smoke showed a hot spot in the plastic.
Across the lab, Paulson tried to troubleshoot another team’s equipment failure. Like random lightning bolts, groans or curses came from all the teams as their circuitry cooked off. By the time the fourth one had fried, the students actively searched for signs of sabotage.
Mitch simultaneously shrugged and shook his head. “No worries, let’s figure out what happened.” He inclined his head toward the other teams.
“It’s not like we don’t have company. Check the juice first.”
Hunter grabbed a tester and inserted it into the guts of their robot.
“Naw, man,” said Mitch. “Test the bench supply. If it was just us, it’d be our setup, but it’s hitting everyone.”
His voice must have carried, because Paulson turned to them. “Good thinking, Mitch.” He raised his voice. “The rest of you, unplug your equipment. Let’s not cook anything else.”
The teams with still-functioning bots snatched at the cords supplying power. The other teams moved more slowly, dejected at the weeks’ worth of work gone.
Hunter put the probes of the multimeter into the receptacle side mounted on the lab bench. He shifted the selector, checked the voltage, shifted again, tested amperage, and let loose a disgruntled sigh. “Normal.”
“It can’t be frickin’ normal, dude. Something cooked off our board. Maybe it was a surge.” Mitch frowned as he fumbled for an explanation. The expression Hunter wore placed him in the category of village idiot. “The supplies are protected against spikes and surges.”
A telltale pop came from across the room, and both boys turned to face it.
“What the hell—” yelled a redheaded youth, fist clenched to strike at something as frustration twisted his face. He turned, faced Paulson, and extended his hands palm up, asking for answers. “It wasn’t even plugged in.”
Paulson glanced up at the clock, and Mitch followed his gaze. Ten minutes left in class.
“Pack it in, everyone. Unplug all your gear. Make sure you pull the batteries, too. We have a few minutes. The teams that had failures, I want full documentation of what cooked. If you know the sequence, get it written down. Teams that didn’t fry, help the others, after you get your robots de-powered.”
The frustrated kid spoke up. “Why are we pulling batteries?”
“Because we have a major anomaly and energy can transmit in forms other than through the wires.”
They all knew this—it was basic physics—but Mitch’s forehead wrinkled as he realized that he had fallen into the trap of believing his eyes instead of considering the full range of options. The equipment had fried from some freak spike, either natural or manmade. Direct connections such as those to an inconsistent voltage supply were the most likely culprit for the malfunctions, but most of their electronics were unshielded. A solid pulse of energy could conceivably damage the circuits.
Mitch looked into the distance. “So why’d only some of the gear cook, if it was a pulse?”
“Good question. Once we know the answer to that, we might be able to reverse engineer the process. Finish out your thought, Mitch. How?”
Mitch squirmed under the inquisitiveness of the other students in the lab. They paused in their cleanup activities to listen. Uncomfortable as the center of attention, he gazed past them as the options swirled and sorted themselves into some kind of order.
“Each one of us built a slightly different set of circuits. Finding out which ones cooked and how will give us the information to determine the source of the energy.” He shrugged and glanced at Paulson.
“If it’s the same capacitor”—he inclined his head toward the blackened interior of his robot—“for all of us, then we’ll have an idea of the magnitude of the surge. We’ll also be able to find out about where the circuits picked up the current by tracing forward from there to potential entry points.” He stopped, his mind racing ahead.
“You don’t think it was a spike on the bench power.” He checked Paulson’s reaction. He was close, no cigar. He considered it a second more. “Pulling the batteries might not help. You’re thinking it’s some type of electromagnetic pulse that hit the lab. The pulse might be transmitting right into the unshielded wiring. So nothing is safe until we figure out where did it come from.”
His voice rose slightly on the last, sounding loud as the other lab rats alternated disbelieving glances at him with worried touches to their precious robots.
“That’s the other question, Mitch. Once we get the first one answered, we’ll have a better idea of how to finesse the second.” Paulson shot an approving smile at the student before addressing the group again.
“A lot of you have some major catching up to do on your projects now,” he said, and a faint chorus of angry muttering agreed. “I’m going to keep the lab open this afternoon. Those of you who want to get started rebuilding today can come on in.” He surveyed the wreckage. “And I’ll open up next week during spring break.”
Around Mitch, kids with the broken machines were nodding, and talking to their partners in quiet voices, making arrangements to meet. The ones who had weathered the event sat taller, relieved. One, the Asian girl at the bench next to theirs, spoke with downcast features and a diffident voice.
“Our robot is working. I can come in and show you what we did. Maybe that will help.”
A couple of “thanks” came from various corners of the room. Mitch turned to find Hunter glaring at him, a dark scowl cast across his face. Hunter turned his head away.
“I got places to go,” said Hunter. “You’re going to have to fix the damn thing.”
He’s still pissed, thought Mitch. He still hadn’t figured out how the stun gun had misfired. It was another mystery, like the blown circuits. Like Kenzie.
“Can’t,” said Mitch, without elaboration.
Hunter did not disguise his scowl. “Whatever, then,” he said, and tossed the tester on the table as he turned on a heel and pivoted away. He strode over to Paulson and spoke to him. His words were spoken too quietly to hear but were delivered with an emphatic hand gesture, a sweep of his pointer finger in a half-moon arc with his wrist rotating over that, finished by indicating the door.
Paulson nodded, and to Mitch’s surprise, Hunter walked out of class five minutes early. He sighed and began to catalogue the full extent of the damage. It was going to take a while.
Chapter 20
Kenzie stood in the center of the training floor, wearing a blindfold. She strained to hear Jules moving, but other than muted sounds from the street and Jackson occasionally shifting position, the studio was silent.
She flinched when she felt a gentle tap on the muscle below the base of her neck.
“Let go, Kenzie,” said Jules’s voice. “Stop trying so hard to use your senses. Be aware instead.”
Kenzie’s eyelashes brushed against the silky material tied around her head, but Jules had made sure that no light made it through, though it did not feel overly confining.
“Relax.”
She turned her head toward the voice.
“Try to feel where I’m at, try to feel where I’m moving to,” said Jules, her voice soothing and rhythmic. “Don’t think about it, don’t try to follow me with your usual senses. Breathe and relax. Do it. Take a deep breath—”
Kenzie did.
“—and hold it—”
Again, she complied.
“Now, relax and let it flow out, and with it, feel the edges of your perception grow as it follows your breath. Feel it and then do it again. Keep doing it.”
Jules fell quiet.
The traffic sounds slid off into space, but Kenzie gradually could feel the presence of Jackson on the bench. Each time he shifted, the picture in her head reordered itself. A sensation like floating pervaded her body as she measured the breaths, in, gentle hold, out. A pressure grew on her right side, near her cheek, and she turned her head imperceptibly in that direction.
“Very good,” said Jules. Kenzie could hear the smile, and her subconscious built an image of the dusky face.
A rasping sound of the door to the studio opening, accompanied by the tinkling of keys, dragged her attention sideways, and a ball of tension deep in her abdomen released the serenity like a flock of mourning doves scattering to the heavens. Her eyes fluttered open. The pulsing beat of a car stereo thumped into the studio as someone held the door open.
Not a student, she thought, and then, Mitch?
Her breathing changed, coming from high in her chest, and faster.
She heard Jules speak, her words measured.
“This is a private lesson,” she said. “If you would like to wait in my office, I will be with you in a few minutes.”
“Um, ’kay.”
It sounded like him. The feeling inside her split, settling lower in her abdomen and higher in her chest. The closing door cut off the pulsing beat. A pair of seconds later she heard the seat in the office creak.
The feeling down low was like a wire galvanizing her nerve endings, radiating from below her belly button. She drew a deep breath.
It caught at the back of her throat.
Jules apologized. “Sorry, Kenzie, I thought I locked the door.”
You did, thought Kenzie. She had unlocked it when no one was paying attention.
“Relax, find that place that you were at, and breathe, focus on the breathing, nice and easy, in and out.” The black belt modulated her voice downward, to reestablish the atmosphere that fled with the interruption.
Kenzie forced her body to relax, but even the slightest noise distracted her. The office chair squeaked, and the muscles between her shoulder blades involuntarily twitched. Twice, she completely lost track of where Jules was. She jerked her arm at the delicate pressure of Jules’s touch on her left forearm.
Jules sighed. “He’s not here to see me, is he?”
Kenzie gave Jules a microscopic shake of her head.
“Your companion”—Jules never called Jackson a bodyguard—“is looking daggers at him.”
“It’s his job.”
“Understood.”
Kenzie waited, unsure whether the conversation meant that the lesson was over or not. She wanted to get the blindfold off but knew not to touch it until Jules gave her permission.
“You might as well go change. We’re not going to get anything done with you wound up like this.”
Kenzie sensed amusement rather than disparagement underlying the words. She reached to the blindfold and removed it. She blinked rapidly at the light streaming around her. The afternoon sun cast her slim body in a long silhouette stretching to the wall. The interior lights were off, but even the limited natural light overwhelmed her. With each blink, she could feel her pupils adapting until the illumination felt bright but not painful.