by Sarah Noffke
“Worked at that electronics shop, you mean?” Adler asked, sounding too amused for Liv’s liking. “Do you plan to continue to work in this mortal job?”
“I don’t believe what I do in my own time is the concern of the Councilors,” Liv fired back.
The entertained expression on Adler’s face evaporated as he leaned forward. “Although you might be right, you will find your role as a Warrior much easier if you don’t fight us on everything. The Councilors are here to help you, Ms. Beaufont.”
Catching the humiliated look on Clark’s face, Liv decided to back down. “I’m grateful for the help. I simply choose to live my life outside of this place in my own way.”
“Well, if you decide to change your mind on training, then—”
“She created a portal,” Hester cut Adler off, looking down at her pad and scrolling through the report on Liv’s magic.
A small laugh escaped his mouth. “That’s impossible. Portal magic is complex and requires a lot of focus.”
“Not for magicians who learn how to control their emotions,” Liv fired back, earning a questioning look from the white tiger. He stood and strode over to her gracefully. When he was in front of her, he sat, looking at her in an evaluating manner.
Liv tried to pretend that he wasn’t dangerously close and giving her a look that made her feel like dinner.
All the Councilors were busy reviewing their own pads. After a moment, Adler looked up, wiping his arm roughly across his forehead. “Well, a likely explanation is the current surge in your power. It will normalize soon, though, so you shouldn’t get used to it. Portal magic is something second-year magicians begin but don’t master. I guarantee it takes more than controlling one’s emotions to pull off.”
Liv looked at the tiger, trying to decipher the strange message in its eyes. “If I’m supposedly not ready to attempt portal magic, how did you expect me to get to Las Vegas?”
Adler sighed as if bored by this conversation. “All of the notes for your case are in the codex, Ms. Beaufont. I urge you to study it carefully and return to us with questions or concerns tomorrow.”
“So when do you expect me to complete the case?”
Adler looked down the bench both ways, although he didn’t seem to register the various faces before he spoke again. “That’s entirely up to you, but please understand that your first case is always challenging, so don’t be deterred.”
“Right,” Liv said, drawing out the word.
A moment later, Adler glanced at her with an edgy glint in his eyes. “Ms. Beaufont, just so you know, after your case has been assigned, you’re dismissed for the day.”
Liv found herself nodding, just as the other Warriors had done. She backed toward the exit, and only turned and sped away when the white tiger rose from his position, once again giving her the look she recognized but couldn’t read.
Chapter Twenty
Outside of the Chamber of the Tree, Liv slipped into one of the shadowy edges of the hallway. She waited for a breath, until Plato materialized on cue.
“Did I handle that all wrong?” she asked the feline.
He gave her an impassive look. “Depends on what you were going for.”
“I think a little disdain mixed with dumbstruck awe.”
“I think you achieved that,” Plato answered.
Liv backed up as several Councilors exited through the Door of Reflection, none of them talking, but rather hurrying for the large door across from the chamber. A cold so startling it nearly made her scream crept over her back and arms. Liv caught the yell before it escaped her and spun to find she’d nearly fallen into the strange abyss down the hallway. She took a step away, careful to remain hidden if anyone else exited the Chamber of the Tree.
“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Liv asked, pointing at the black chasm.
“I have some speculations about what it could be.”
“Let me guess… You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Liv asked, listening as the Councilors retreated.
“So, this case you’ve been assigned?” Plato nodded at the device in her hand.
“Right,” Liv said, raising the codex. “How do I turn it on—”
The codex lit up, brightening the space around her.
“Well, that was strange timing,” Liv stated.
“I don’t believe it was,” Plato said. “Try thinking about what you need from the device.”
Liv did this, reflecting on the troll case. The screen flickered, bringing up a report.
“So it works off my thoughts?” Liv asked.
“Intentions, really,” Plato corrected. “Remember what Rory said about magic being related to intentions?”
Liv nodded, squinting at the screen. Her mouth fell open. “They expected me to drive or fly to Las Vegas for this case?”
Plato didn’t look as offended as she felt. “How else were you supposed to get there?”
“Portal magic.”
“You’re not supposed to be able to do that.”
“And yet I can,” Liv replied. “And they have me going to round up a troll. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were giving me shit cases.”
Liv scrolled through the report. It offered her multiple modes of transportation, none of them using magic. She also had an expense account and a credit card that would cover her airfare or a car rental.
“This says I’m supposed to use a tracking spell to find the troll,” Liv stated, reading the report. “Do you know how to do that?”
“No, but I’ve got an idea,” Plato answered.
Liv smiled down at the cat, holding out her hand and preparing to create a portal. “Okay, get your party clothes on. We’re headed to Vegas, baby.”
Liv tried to open her mouth to yell at the eight-foot-tall troll who even by Las Vegas’ standards wasn’t wearing enough clothes. However, every time she opened her mouth, she felt like she was drowning in a puddle of water.
“Hello,” the troll said, his diction perfect a chain dangling between the piercing in his earlobe and the one in his nostril. “Are you okay?”
Liv gawked up at the troll, careful to keep her eyes averted from whatever was not completely shielded by his loincloth. People strolled around them on the Strip, their eyes fixed on the lurking beast who smelled strangely like sour milk and cherry gelatin.
“Liv, wake up, would you?” the troll said, again his voice reminding her of someone.
She peered up at the creature, mesmerized by its docile demeanor.
Something shook her. She turned, but there was no one nearby. Still, the shaking continued.
“Hey, wake up!”
Liv jolted upright, her eyes squinting from the brightness of the shop’s lights. Liquid dripped off her chin. She brought her arm across her mouth, sopping up entirely too much drool from her face.
“There you are, Sleepyhead,” Shane said, gazing at her quizzically.
Liv looked around, trying to orient herself. The past twelve hours fast-forwarded through her brain until she remembered how she came to be sleeping on the workbench in John’s shop.
“Hey, Shane,” she said, her voice croaky. “What can I do for you?”
He pointed to the printer sitting next to her. “Did you have a chance to check that out?”
She blinked at the device. “Um, I haven’t, actually. Things got crazy here yesterday.”
Shane whistled through his teeth. “I’ll say. I heard about the kids who roughed up the shop. On top of the earthquakes and vermin, John’s got his hands full.” He looked around. “However, the shop looks better than I’ve seen it in a while.”
Liv agreed with a nod. Rory had done a good job. She’d tried to continue to help that morning by fixing various devices, including the printer, but it hadn’t worked. Every time she pointed at something, a weak spark shot out of her like her magic was broken.
“I’ll take a look at the printer this morning,” Liv promised. “If you stop by tomorrow, I’ll have an e
stimate.”
“Oh, give yourself a break if you need it,” Shane stated. “Looks like you tuckered yourself out cleaning up this place.”
“It wasn’t… Yeah, thanks,” Liv stammered, waving at Shane as he backed for the door. There was no point in getting herself in deeper trouble.
When the door to the shop closed with a rattle, Liv pulled the printer closer to her. She might not have magic to fix the equipment at the moment, but she had her brain, which was almost better. Then something Rory had said rang clear in her head: “There’s something honest about doing things without magic. Being overly reliant on it is dangerous.”
Liv smiled, the words resonated with something deep within her—a core belief that had made her different from most in the House of Seven. From an early age, she hadn’t trusted magic. Not because she feared the role it had played in her parent’s death, but because she thought it spoiled otherwise good people. It made things too easy. It created appearances and deceived. Magic at its core was deception, or at least, that was what she used to believe. She wasn’t so sure anymore.
“You have a gummy bear stuck to your cheek,” Plato said after he jumped up on the workbench.
Liv swiped at her face and pulled a cherry gummy bear away from her cheek. She eyed it tentatively before popping it in her mouth.
Plato gave her a look of disgust.
“Hey, I’m hungry,” she protested.
“I understand why. You haven’t had that much to eat.” He nodded at the package of powdered donuts, empty bag of roasted almonds, and the half-finished gummy bears.
Liv ignored him and grabbed the bag of gummy bears, pulling a handful free. She sprinkled the little bears into her mouth, imagining she could hear them scream as she chomped, just like the troll could have done with her last night if he pleased.
The sugar didn’t wake her up as she would have liked, but it did take the edge off her constant hunger.
Again, she pointed her finger and her intention at the printer, willing a repair. When nothing happened, she sighed.
Shaking off the nearly incapacitating exhaustion, Liv set to work. She had a lot of appliances to fix, and apparently magic would not be coming to her rescue.
Chapter Twenty-One
The door was wide open when Liv arrived at Rory’s cottage that afternoon after work. She’d grabbed a protein bar from a store and demolished it on the way over. Although she’d tried to open a portal to his house, it hadn’t worked, meaning she had to walk the mile and half there, which would have been fine on any other day except that one. Each step felt like a million. Each minute, a year. Every sound was an orchestra of noise, and the lights were blinding.
“You look like shit,” Rory observed when she sidled into his place and leaned against the doorway.
Liv glanced down at Plato. “Are you going to let him talk to you like that?”
Ignoring her, Plato jumped onto the nearby armchair and stretched before fluffing the cushion several times with his claws and lying down.
“I was referring to you, magician,” Rory said.
Liv brushed a blonde strand off her cheek casually. “Oh, well, I forgot to brush my hair.”
“Or sleep,” Rory added.
Liv nodded. “Yeah, I only managed to get like two hours or so, but I’ll be all right.”
“The hell you will.” Rory picked up a small leather pouch beside his chair and jiggled the contents absentmindedly.
Liv waved him off. “It’s fine. I can go days without getting a full night’s rest. I just have to make up for it at some point.”
“That may have been true before your magic was unlocked, but things are different now,” Rory explained. “If you’re not rested, magic will leech from your life. I hope you haven’t tried to use any spells today.”
Liv’s eyes darted to the side. “Not successfully.”
Rory nodded. “Good thing you came here before you killed yourself, you dumb magician. No more using magic until you’ve had a proper rest.”
“But what about our lesson?” Liv asked.
Rory tossed the pouch back and forth in his large hands. “It’s canceled. And if you ever show up here this tired again, the lessons are off for good. Watching an idiotic magician kill herself isn’t on my bucket list.”
“But insulting her is?” Liv pretended to ask.
“Go home and get a full night’s rest,” Rory ordered. “If you do that, we can resume lessons tomorrow.”
Liv shook her head as a rogue yawn escaped her mouth. “I can’t. I have to go to the House of Seven tonight.”
Rory’s eyes fluttered with annoyance. “You’re not any good to them like this.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Liv stated. “They already treat me like I’m a loser. If I don’t show up, I’ll give them one more thing to ridicule me about.”
“Wow,” Rory said with zero emotion. “Sounds like the kind of upstanding individuals I’d want to surround myself with.”
Liv couldn’t argue with that. “The Seven are a bunch of jerks, but I’m not doing this for them. I’m doing it for my brother and sister. For my family.”
Rory regarded her for a moment, the brooding expression he wore most of the time fading slightly. “Then I guess you’ll be quitting the repair shop.”
Liv shook her head. “No, I work there for me. A girl has to have something.”
Rory considered the pouch in his hand for a moment. When he looked up again, he had an expression of indifference. “Then you’re going to have to figure out how to manage this all on your own, because you seem to have made up your mind.”
Plato lifted his head. “I told her that too.”
Rory looked directly at the cat. “I thought you said you only talked to Liv?”
Plato’s head dropped back down as he closed his eyes.
“Damn lynxes always think they are so clever,” Rory complained.
“That’s the second time someone has called Plato a ‘lynx,’” Liv stated. “What does that mean?”
Rory lifted one of his bushy eyebrows at her. “He’s your cat, and you don’t even know what he’s all about?”
“He’s not my cat,” Liv argued. “Plato belongs to himself, just as I belong to myself.”
Rory nodded. “Yes, very true. And he’s technically not a cat. Well, not by traditional standards.”
He stood, brushing off his pants, although they weren’t dirty. From a nearby shelf, he retrieved a book and handed it to Liv.
“I’d tell you to read that in your free time, but that’s sort of a joke at this point.”
She read the cover aloud. “Mysterious Creatures by Bermuda Laurens.”
Rory pointed at the volume. “Not everything in that book is accurate. A lot of it is conjecture because the subject matter is a bit hard to pin down.”
Liv laughed. “Yes, this Bermuda lady probably made a lot of this stuff up…like her name for instance.”
Rory shot her a disgusted look. “Bermuda was my mother.”
Liv covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I just meant that it was a strange name for a book on mysterious creatures.”
“Why?” Rory questioned.
“Well, because Bermuda is a place cloaked in mystery.”
Rory shook his head at her. “It’s a place where mortals have seen a lot of things they shouldn’t have or things they can’t explain. The actual area is quite normal by our standards.”
“’Our standards,’” Liv repeated dryly.
“Well, read the book when you can. Maybe you’ll learn something about your little friend.”
Liv held up the book, laying her head on it. “I’ll read it through osmosis when I’m sleeping.”
“No reading while you’re sleeping until you’ve rested. You need to dream to rest properly.”
Liv shot him look of surprise. “I was only joking. Reading while sleeping is a thing?”
“Reading while sleeping, or exploring, or doing just about anything,” Rory explained. “How d
o you think that the Great Pyramids got built so fast?”
“Aliens?” Liv answered tentatively.
Rory sighed. “For a Seven, you’re sure dumb. I’d expect your education to be more…well, doctrine-oriented.”
Liv shrugged. “I forgot a lot of it, and my parents did a lot of my teaching, which was sort of organic. It was only the formative years when I was subjected to the strict teachings, which my mother always called ‘subtle brainwashing.’”
Rory pressed out his large lips, his eyes narrowed. “It sounds like your mother and I would have gotten along.”
Liv wanted to agree, but the idea that Rory would have enjoyed a conversation with her mother made her throat ache. It almost made her jealous to think that someone else would have had her mother’s attention when she wanted all of it. Pining for someone’s love you couldn’t have was Liv’s curse.
A knock on Rory’s door startled Liv and she jumped nearly a foot in the air, her reflexes unpredictable due to her exhaustion.
Standing on the porch was a squatty old woman who had her head covered with a shawl. She had a large wrinkled nose, and hardly any teeth when she smiled. “Sorry to have scared you. I was looking for Rory.”
The giant came around Liv, nearly pushing her out of the way. “Birdie. I told you I’d come to you.”
“I know, I know,” the woman said, waving a withered hand at him. “But it’s good for me to get out.”
Rory handed the woman the leather pouch with a smile. “I understand that. Here you go.”
“I promise that next month—”
“Let’s not speak of it,” Rory said, cutting her off and ushering her away.
Liv watched as he helped the woman down the porch, whispering something in her ear. The giant had to bend in half to reach her.
“Bye, bye, Rory,” the old woman called when she was to the walkway, waving behind her as she trudged forward.
“What was that all about?” Liv asked, her arms across her chest.
Rory shook his head. “It was nothing, and definitely none of your business.”
“That’s fine. I’ll just catalog it with the rest of your suspicious behavior.”