by Tom Early
“Sam, I’m sorry,” I blurted out as she continued to stuff her things back into her bag as quickly as possible. “You were right. I shouldn’t have done that without asking first or anything.”
Sam looked up at me, and now I could see the hurt in her eyes that I’d been too off-balance yesterday to see. She didn’t say anything, so I continued.
“I get that it wasn’t my place to try and solve your problems for you. It was stupid of me, and I won’t do it again without your permission first. I just wanted to help, but that’s no excuse for being stupid,” I finished and tried not to look too much like I was bracing for a blow.
Sam stared at me for a few seconds, pausing in her motion. “Is that what you think I’m mad about?” she said finally.
“Um. Maybe?”
After what felt like an uncomfortably long time of just looking at me, Sam sighed. “Fay, I’m mad at you because of what you decided to do. Part of it was that you did something that wasn’t yours to do, yeah, but that’s not all of it. I’m mad because you put yourself at risk by going to Didas for a solution. You know just how dangerous he is, and you shouldn’t be doing things like that at all, especially not without telling me first. I’m mad at you for thinking that was anything even close to a good idea, and I’m mad at me for making you feel like that was necessary in the first place.”
“If it helps, all Didas wanted in return was for me to stop being rude every time I have to talk to him,” I said awkwardly.
“Then you got lucky,” Sam said flatly. “That man’s manipulative as all hell.” I started to speak, to protest or agree, I wasn’t sure, and she held up a hand. “Just… I appreciate your apology, Fay. Let me deal with this for a little longer on my own. It’s not about you. I just have some things to figure out.”
I nodded. “Okay. You know where I’ll… yeah.”
Sam gave me a little half smile that lasted barely a second, and then she walked out of the room. I was struck with the sudden fierce wish that Tyler was here for me to talk to, but he was still back at Tufts. I hadn’t texted him about the fight, though he had told me about his schedule and the friends he was making earlier yesterday. I knew it was too soon to miss him this much, not when I’d just gotten to spend the night with him a few days ago, but I did. The insane pace here made it feel like it had been that much longer. But I couldn’t ask him to see me every time something went wrong. I needed to be stronger than that. However long Sam needed to deal with the situation, I could give it to her.
WHEN SATURDAY finally rolled around, I was grateful for the excuse Speaker Alferon’s lessons gave me to visit the Garden. I’d been spending most of my time holed away in the library, trying to avoid running into Sam before she’d worked through whatever it was that still angered her. The Garden was a nice change of pace, to say the least. I followed the winding path to the very back of the forested area, trying not to shiver at the eerie similarity the place bore to my dream.
When I came back to the small copse of trees, Professor Alferon was already there, speaking to a slight, dark-haired woman who turned around at my approach.
“Feayr,” Professor Amara said with a smile. “How nice to see you again.”
I gave her a little wave. “Hi, Professor. I didn’t know you were back on campus.”
“I won’t be for long,” she replied, “but Alfie here is an old friend, and I couldn’t resist coming to say hello.” The elf standing next to her inclined his head at the mention of his, uh, nickname. There was something weird about his posture next to Professor Amara, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Yes, thank you for the visit,” Alferon said, embracing Amara. “And thank you for the advice as well. I shall have to think on it.”
“I’m sure you’ll come to the right conclusion,” Professor Amara said to him with a smile and then walked off down the path and out of sight.
Alferon stared after her for a bit with an expression on his face that I didn’t recognize and then turned to me with a smile. “Well,” he said, “let’s begin. Tell me, where does the energy to cast a spell come from?”
I frowned. “It depends on the spell and the setup. Most of the time it comes from the caster, and the amount of energy it takes to cast the spell acts like mental and physical stress on the caster. But if it’s something like summoning with the circle set up ahead of time, it comes from the magic of the area instead.”
Alferon nodded. “Correct on all counts. But did you know that Summoning is not the only Form of magic that can draw energy from sources other than the caster? Infusion does it as well. Let me show you.” He pulled something out of his pocket and showed it to me. “This is a tulip bulb. It may be small and sleeping, but its real power lies in its potential. If I were to ask it to merely burn that potential a little faster, however….” He held the bulb up level to his face and whispered something I couldn’t quite catch. The response was immediate—a tiny green shoot slowly unfurled itself from the bulb, reaching up into the sky, thickening and lengthening rapidly until a few seconds later Alferon was holding a rich purple tulip in the palm of his hand.
He offered it to me, and I held it gingerly. It certainly felt real enough.
“Where normally the bulb would take weeks to draw the proper nutrients and energy from the sun and soil to grow, it instead fed on its own reserves,” Alferon explained. “It required no real input on my part beyond the slightest spark to get it going.”
That was cool, though I wasn’t sure how practical I’d find speed-growing plants to be. Then the tulip shivered in my hands, the petals shriveling and falling off, one by one, and the stalk bent over and collapsed as well.
“But the energy for such growth has to come from somewhere,” Alferon said gently, scooping up the remains of the tulip and placing it on the soil by his feet. “In this case, from a drastically reduced lifespan. But this was merely a dramatic example of the potential for magic that requires next to no effort on your part. A plant’s growth can be easily bent to your will—try the same thing with a person’s wound, and since you are not exerting control over all the person’s processes, the result can be as unfortunate as that poor tulip’s collapse.”
I paled. “Noted.”
Alferon gave me a smile. “That particular demonstration is given to all Infusion students who wish to try their hands at healing. It is so much easier to destroy than to create, and to do one when you mean the other.” He clapped. “But enough of that. The reason I chose to show it to you is because I wish to show you the subtleties of Infusion magic. During your Trial, you created your Wards out of ice, correct?” He saw my surprised expression and put a hand on my shoulder. “I was told about what happened with Winter, Feayr. The headmaster felt it would be wise to have me fully informed if I was to teach you personally. What happened there was no fault of your own.”
“Thanks,” I managed, my chest tight. Maybe someday I’d fully believe people when they said that. “Can we get back to the lesson, please?”
Alferon lifted his hand back. “Of course. Did you feel the energy drain that came with creating such a complex Ward out of thin air, not to mention spreading it out over your friends as well?”
I shrugged. “A little? It got less tiring the more I did it, though.”
“That would be because….” Alferon paused. “Ah. Let’s say the average caster such as you or myself has perhaps a bucketful of water to spend on magic. When the bucket runs dry, you fall unconscious or die from the fatigue. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. If I had attempted to do what you did with those Wards from nothing, I could have done it, but I would have been quite tired after the fact and would quite likely have injured myself were it not for the presence of the runes set up in the Arena to prevent exactly that. I imagine you’ve seen other casters do things far more dramatic than your Wards, however?”
I thought back to the dryad who had created the temporary forest during her match, and Septimus’s teammate Jacob, who had what essentially amounted to
a giant water cannon. I nodded.
“It’s likely that they had been practicing their spells for years, and drew on the ambient magic the Arena provided as well. Practice with a certain spell or Form of magic helps to slowly reduce the effect that casting it has on you, and if they used the Arena’s magic to augment their own, well, then they could do something moderately impressive.” Alferon looked at me seriously. “You, however, did neither of those things. Janus University’s records state that you only started using your magic on a regular basis barely three months before the Trials, and that you had no real idea about how to draw from the environment, which is common for Earth-born casters. I promise you, no other student in your situation could have done that.”
I frowned. “Okay, say I get all that. What’s your point?”
“My point is that your ability to cast spells of ice and snow was not the only thing that came from Winter,” Alferon said patiently. “Where you or I have a bucketful of energy, Winter has an ocean. I need you to understand that if you attempt to cast spells of the magnitude that you did during the Trials now, you will only hurt yourself. You need to learn how to rely on the energy around you, not just the energy inside you. If you wished to create a Ward now that had the level of power of your old ones, what would you do?”
I thought about it. The only Wards I’d tried to make since recovering from the Trials were the basic ones that Aiden’s old textbook had provided. It was just hardened air that I could focus on to make even harder, and shape with some difficulty. I knew the spells to do more in theory, but I hadn’t attempted any of them yet because I wasn’t fully sure I understood them. But that didn’t seem to be what Alferon was talking about, not with the tulip lecture he’d just given me right before this.
Hardening air required me to spend my own energy, because air was just air. It didn’t have any life or potential on its own, at least none that I could figure out how to use. I looked around, at the trees stretching up into the sky and the plants below my feet, and then it hit me.
“I could use plants,” I said, mostly to myself.
Alferon gave me an encouraging smile. “Yes, you could. If you want a Ward that acts like a living thing in its defense of you, why not use a plant?” Alferon made a quick gesture and a piece of bark fell neatly off one of the nearby trees, flying through the air to Alferon instead of landing on the ground. “Plants have limited sentience,” Alferon continued, “but they have enough to react to changes in their environment. Flowers, for example, will attempt to lean in whichever direction affords them the most sun. The process is slow, of course, but if you’re looking for a Ward that only needs to last you a few minutes instead of a few months, you can speed that reaction time up immensely.” He snapped his fingers, sending a quick spark of light from his hand into the piece of bark. “Go ahead and throw a basic attack at me. Low power, please—this is just a demonstration.”
I considered making a Minor Orb to use, and then shrugged and grabbed a small stone off the path. When Alferon nodded, I threw the stone at him in an easy, underhanded toss. When the stone got close enough to him, the small piece of bark currently hovering by his shoulder suddenly quivered and shot through the air, relocating itself to directly in front of the stone’s path. The stone fell harmlessly to the ground, and the bark tapped lightly against Alferon’s chest, before the elf snapped his fingers again and let it fall to the earth as well.
“Replace the urge to seek out sunlight with motion,” Alferon said calmly, “and you have a very low energy ward that can protect you and repair itself. The more experienced you are with that subject, the more impressive things you can do with it.” Alferon glanced at the trees all around us. “If I wanted to, I could ask the tree to keep me safe, not just a tiny piece of bark. Living wood, constantly wrapping around me and shaping itself as the situation requires. It would still be draining for me, of course, but no more so than a normal Ward of air. The tree itself would carry most of the cost. But, of course, the trees and I respect each other, and I would not lightly ask one to sacrifice itself for me. Hence the demonstration with the bark.”
“So what would I be able to do with it?” I asked.
“Well, considering that you’ve never worked with plants before this and likely possess no natural affinity, not very much,” Alferon said apologetically. “You need to figure out your own affinities before choosing what material to make your Wards out of for maximum effect.” He paused. “What do you picture, when you recite the incantation for your Ward?”
I hadn’t ever really thought about it before. “Um, a shield? A wall, maybe?”
“Nothing else?”
I shook my head.
“Have you ever tested what affinities you might have? Not for Forms, of course. I’m referring to the elements. Nonhumans have it easy—elves and dryads and the like are tied to nature and the earth, merfolk to water, and so on. In contrast, no such rule exists for humans. Most people have one or two elements that they are particularly competent with, and opposing ones that they can barely work with at all. For those casters that have familiars, the familiar almost always falls in the same elemental affinity that their caster possesses.”
I thought about how Sam seemed to be weaving light into most of her attacks against Sofia and the way the ercinee looked much the same. Then I thought about the fact that my familiar was Tyler, and I was pretty sure “human” wasn’t an actual affinity. “I get that. Sorta.”
Alferon nodded. “I’d like to help you find out what your affinities are. The first step to using Infusion magic properly is playing to your strengths. Do you have any idea already about what they might be?”
I was about to say I didn’t, when a memory from when Sam and I were still figuring out how to cast the basic spells came back to me. We’d been trying to figure out what creatures we could safely summon to prevent another ercinee-like debacle, and much like when I’d tried and failed to summon the ercinee myself, sometimes the summoning spells didn’t cooperate. In the end, I’d only been able to summon the gnome, a weird little earth creature, and the undine, who was essentially a model made out of water. Sam had gotten the salamander and whatever that air thing was.
“I… think I might have an affinity for earth and water, then,” I said slowly. “If summoning spells are anything to go on, I mean.”
“Really.” Alferon looked thoughtful. “Actually, that does rather make sense. It seems unlikely that Winter would have attempted to possess anyone who didn’t have a similar affinity. After all, earth and water together would indicate a particular talent for ice.”
God, I missed being able to use my old powers. If I could get them back, even in a weird sort of stilted way using incantations and the like…. Then I remembered Didas’s knife, and Aria’s still form, lying in that room. I shuddered. “I think I’d rather stay away from ice, actually.”
Alferon’s expression softened. “I understand. Still, earth and water. Water would certainly allow for a very dynamic Ward, but earth has the added benefit of being readily available in just about any situation. Shall we see what we can do?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good. Now, I want you to recite the Ward incantation as you did before, but this time I want you to have a picture in your mind of it forming from earth instead of air.”
“Okay.” I recited the words, and instead of having no image in my mind beyond just a shield or something, I tried to picture the ground rising from beneath me and curving up in a dome. To my surprise, the reaction was almost immediate, and felt almost… natural. The dirt packed itself together, showering tiny pebbles to the ground as it compressed ever tighter and rose up like a wave in front of me, arching over my head and covering my back as well, until I was in a pitch-black space with—yeah, okay, deactivating it now—very little air. The dirt promptly fell in a curtain all over me, leaving me coughing and scraping dirt out of my hair as Alferon boomed with laughter.
“Disregarding that last part, how did that fee
l?” Alferon asked, still chuckling.
I shook my head like a dog, sending a cloud of dirt flying. “Pretty good, actually. It felt like it’d do better on its own than my usual Ward, at least.”
“Packed earth certainly needs less reinforcement than air to turn aside assault,” Alferon said, moving his hand in a circle and blasting me with a gust of wind that effectively got rid of most of the dirt still on me. “But as you can see, it comes with its own downsides as well. Like blocking your vision, for example.”
I made a face. “No kidding. But I’d feel a hell of a lot safer hiding behind a dirt wall from a fireball than I would with just air.”
“And you are right to feel that way. Let’s see what more we can manage to teach you, then, since the headmaster has informed me that you will be unavailable for tomorrow’s lesson.”
I got the incantation back to the front of my mind and grinned. “I’m ready.”
WHEN I got back to Obsidian, Sam was waiting for me in the common room, a sheet of paper held in her hand. Her face was tight, meaning that she was either angry beyond reason, which I was seriously hoping she wasn’t, or she was stressed about something to the point that her focus had narrowed to it and just about nothing else. I was used to seeing that face on her when she had an important martial arts evaluation coming up back in high school, not here. Regardless, as soon as she caught sight of me she marched straight up, grabbed my arm, and pulled me upstairs.
“Mind telling me what’s going on?” I asked her as we headed to… my room, apparently. “You know, before I have to unlock the door and all that.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, relax,” Sam said, and I was pathetically grateful to see her familiar eye roll again. “All is forgiven, we were both dumbasses, move along now.”