I cleared my throat so I could speak without having a frog in it. “I've also used telepathy once, to get inside the head of a wolf woman. I used mimicry to copy an undine and turn my body into water. I healed a broken arm. As for my necromancy, I think it was me who made a bunch of carnivorous skull monsters eat Unus. I rode a zombie horse. And I did whatever I did with Lexie. I don't think I've ever done anything to spell any magic before.”
“That's okay, duckie, we've all got to learn sometime.” She patted me on the knee. “Besides, you weren't using raw magic to raise. Necromancy is an unusual magic in that it cannot be actively spelled: it can only be passively spelled by the body. Now can you remember how you cast the magics?”
“I was really angry both times I used fire: I wanted the wendigo that just ripped me to pieces to die and I wanted to burn my way through the cage to get to Octavius. I was afraid when I used telepathy because she was trying to kill me. I wanted to help when I healed. I was terrified and wanted to go home when I turned my body into water. I was running for my life when I raised the headless horse and skull swarm. And I was… something with Lexie. I remember being shocked, terrified, angry, in pain, and needing her.” At the memory of seeing Lexie's decapitated body hitting the cold, black marble floor, I shivered. No matter that she was “alive” with me now, there was no way that that memory would ever fade from my mind.
Grandma looked confused and stared at me, as if waiting for me to continue. She was silent for a moment before asking, “Yes, but what did you do to cast the magics?”
“I don't understand what you mean.”
“Well you know that, in order to cast, a mage does moves, speaks, etc.? You just said that. So which did you do to cast?”
I furrowed my brow and tried my best to recall anything specific I did and failed, “I don't know. I don't remember doing any of those any time I used magic.”
Grandma looked at me like I was speaking Greek. “But you had to have done something to cast the magic.”
Puzzled, I repeated, “I thought it was the faith of the mage that ultimately cast or spelled magic.”
In a quiet voice, almost as though she was talking to herself, Grandma nodded her head. “That is true.”After that, she was silent as she thought about something. She nibbled her lip and flipped through the creaking pages of the tome in her lap for so long I started fiddling with twigs in the grass. Finally, she let out a long, deep sigh. “I think I figured it out.”
Because she still hadn't said anything after another thirty seconds, I prompted, “What?”
“You weren't raised as a mage. You never went to spell school, so you never learned the proper methods for casting and spelling.” She groaned and flopped back into the grass. “In other words, you never learned how to count to ten, so you made up your own numbers. Now I have to teach you how to do algebra and we're speaking two fundamentally different languages.”
When she explained things that way, I understood the scope of the problem at hand. “Oh,” was all I could really say to that.
Lifting herself back up, she met my gaze with her head resting in her palm. “Yeah, 'oh'. I only have a few days at most to teach you before sending you on your way and we have thirteen years of schooling to catch up on. There's just no way for me to teach you in a way that you would understand. I would have to back up to the very beginning and we just don't have that kind of time.”
“So what can we do?”
She pondered on that. “Instead of trying to teach you, I could just try to trigger your instincts or work with you instead. Maybe you'll spot the parallels and fill in the gaps yourself. It isn't a full education and you'll still have to learn wherever you end up, but in case anything happens over the next few days until you can go into hiding, it'll increase your odds of survival. I'm sure the Pax or the local Circle division will find you a tutor, although keeping your identity a secret as a new, young necromancer with a stone mage's set and no idea of how to spell or cast will be a challenge.
“So I'm going to cast a spell. The first thing you should know is that I'm primarily a philterer, so I spell and cast mainly through potions.” Grandma stood up from the grass and opened her jacket, revealing strands of tiny, colored orbs. From beneath her V-necked t-shirt, she pulled a charm necklace laden with even smaller orbs. She pushed the sleeves of her jacket up, exposing a charm bracelet of exactly the same style as the necklace. Had she always worn those? In exposing the bracelet, she'd also revealed a tattoo that I'd never seen before of a small, curved dagger on her left wrist with the hilt aiming toward her palm. It reminded me of the longsword that Liam had tattooed on his arm.
Grandma fingered the tiny spheres, drawing my gaze back to them. She plucked a single red orb from the lining of her jacket and held the little thing in front of me to inspect. It was in a clear orb that was etched with spiraling swirl patterns. It looked like glass, but when I tapped it with my fingernail, it didn't sound like glass.
With no warning, Grandma bellowed Lexie's name— making me jump— and surveyed the edges of the surrounding forest. Almost a minute of dead silence later, her bright blond head popped out from behind a tree.
“What do you want?” she called back, a twig visible in her disheveled hair even from this distance.
Standing tall and palming the little orb, Grandma smiled and turned to face a large boulder sticking out of the field around twenty feet away. “Nothing, dear, I just needed to know where you were.”
Lexie threw her hands over her head in exasperation and vanished back into the woods.
With an almost bemused smile on her face, Grandma flung the little orb— no bigger than a rubber bouncy ball from a quarter machine— at the rock.
It exploded in an intense ball of light that spread little ropes of flame like napalm. The searing heat radiated even as far away as I was sitting. The brightness and primal need to avoid an open fire made me yelp and recoil from it.
Once the heat had faded enough that I could no longer feel it licking at my skin, I peeked up and saw the rock was black, blistered, and still covered in smoldering red ooze that dripped onto the charred grass below.
“That was a basic fire bomb,” Grandma announced as though exploding fireballs were the most ordinary thing in the world. She walked back over to me and knelt in front of me, opening her jacket. She gestured to all of the tiny spheres dangling there. “Each of these is a spelled magic potion; casting these spells requires that the potion come into contact with the target. Normally, I do this by throwing them, but they can also be cast by ingestion or inhalation.”
I nodded, understanding. “Spelling the potion and casting the spell.”
“Yes, so you can see how your—” she paused as though struggling to find the right word— “methods are unusual.”
“But it worked.” I couldn't keep the note of childish defensiveness from my tone.
“That it did. It's unorthodox, but clearly whatever you're doing is working for you. So instead of teaching you in the traditional ways, all I can think to do is help you to develop your skills in spelling and casting your own way.”
At that time, Lexie emerged from the forest with an armload of plants. The first words out of her mouth were, “If that's supposed to be a volcano, it can't kill too many people if it's flaccid like that. You know, performance anxiety affects everyone at some point in their life.”
I rolled my eyes. “It's not my fiery explosion of doom. It's Grandma's. Aim your erectile dysfunction jokes at her.”
Grandma snorted. “Trust me, dearie, my hot load is more than most can handle. That used to be just a big rock.”
Lexie laughed and set the plants she'd picked in little piles organized by species. “What do we do with these?”
“That's up to Constance. These herbs are common in spelling and she may find them useful if she wanted to mix a powder, poultice, or potion.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
Grandma just looked at me th
en slapped her hands on her thighs. “Well, I'll take that as a sign you won't be needing them then.” She pulled a small, thin stick out of an inside pocket of her jacket and handed it to me.
On one end, dark leather was wound around in a decorative weave to create a handle. The wood was polished to a glossy finish, reflecting the sunlight, but there was something more about it that shone on a different level. I spun it in my hands, examining the etchings that ran along the length of the fine mahogany. They were similar to the markings that adorned the box that had held my bracelet, yet were also like the script that was tattooed on Liam's back.
“This is a basic wand, a time-honored ferrament. Typically, they point it at whatever
they're aiming for and either move it in a certain way or use a verbal command for spelling and casting. If you're a ferramentor, this will likely bring it out in you.”
I thought it over. While it made way more sense to use a magic wand than a bunch of plants to do something magical, it just didn't feel right. “I feel kind of silly using it.”
“Silly?” Grandma repeated, like she wasn't sure she'd heard me right the first time.
“Yeah, like I should be tapping on the brim of a big hat and pulling a bunny out by his ears. That really didn't end well last time.”
Lexie burst out laughing. “I remember that! You stuck your hand down the hat and Thumper bit you. God, how old were we?”
“Eleven.” A smile warmed Grandma's eyes. “I bought you that little magic kit for your eleventh Christmas. It was the same year your parents finally caved in to all your begging and got you your own bunny.”
Bittersweet fondness clenched my heart. Thumper and I had thirteen wonderful— if slightly bloody— years together. In all of the chaos since I got the bracelet, it felt like I hadn't had the time to mourn the loss of my beloved bipolar bunny.
I passed the wand back to Grandma and coughed to try to clear the lump from my throat. “So you can see why I don't think pointing a wand at something will make it explode.” It hadn't worked. My voice still cracked.
She slid it back into her jacket without giving me any grief.
“Try saying or chanting something like a verbal caster.” Grandma zipped her jacket back up. “Usually, verbal casters use words or phrases in Latin, but— contrary to my many suggestions— you took French instead of Latin.”
“It's a dead language. Can you really blame me?”
“Obviously it isn't so dead.” Grandma quipped. It prickled that she was right and that I probably should have listened to her years ago. Latin would have come in handy right now, but would it really? Why would saying “Abracadabra” in any language do anything? It didn't make sense that a word could melt a rock or cause an explosion.
For that matter, what the heck kind of dance moves would do the same thing? Both verbal and kinesthetic casting sounded pretty ridiculous.
I said what I thinking.
Grandma made a frustrated growl and started pacing.
Lexie tapped Grandma on the shoulder, a eureka moment on her face. “You said something earlier about making her feel adrenaline, right?”
Grandma nodded in response.
“Why don't we try scaring her?”
She took a deep breath, thinking. “Well, you're on the right track, but if she knows we're trying to spook her, she won't spook. Also, fear isn't a consistent enough thing. She needs to be able to cast her magic on demand, not only when she's in mortal danger.”
“So what do you think would work?”
Grandma made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and ran her hands through her hair, further mussing her already chaotic curls. Finally, she threw her hands up. “I have no idea what I'm doing. All we're doing is groping around in the bloody dark.”
“Wait a sec,” Lexie murmured, her brows furrowed in thought. “Constance, do you remember what our self-defense teacher said that one time?”
Giving her a blank look, I responded, “We were there for a whole six weeks. He said a lot of things.”
“No, no, about how adrenaline can mess up your thinking in a real fight.”
I nodded.
Grandma let out a bark of victorious laughter. “That's right! A fight would definitely work.”
I was starting to feel squeamish.
Lexie backed away, laughing uncomfortably. “And that would be my cue to leave. Exit stage left.”
Grandma rushed to the car and dug around in the back, pulling out a worn, wooden pole a bit longer than a broom handle. I wondered what it was and why it was in the back of her car, but didn't ask. She came to stand in front of me. “Get up. We're going to beat the magic out of you.”
“Um, I don't think I like the sound of that.”
“Too bad. Either I beat it out of you or Octavius will and at least I won't kill you for real. Now up!” She whacked me on the arm.
I yelped and covered that spot. She'd hit me pretty hard. I scrunched my nose at her, but I got up.
“Your task is to block my attack,” she said with a little too much glee in her voice right before she swung that pole down again, this time aiming for my head.
I stepped back and grabbed the pole with both hands.
In response, Grandma kicked me square in the stomach with her foot.
I stumbled back, gasping for air.
“No using your hands.” She struck me in the exact same spot on my upper arm, which of course hurt even more than it had the first time.
“But—”
“No buts.” This time, she jabbed the pole directly into the side of my ankle.
As I was hopping around on one foot, she tried to hit me again in the side of my head.
“You've got seven genera magics! Do you have any idea how powerful that makes you? And you can't even stop a bloody stick?” She swung for my knee.
I avoided the impact by jumping back, but the rounded wooden end of the pole still brushed against the denim covering my skin.
“Set the pole on fire!” She stabbed me on the hip hard enough that the force echoed through my bone. “Block it with a wall of air!” While I was bent over, she hit me over the head. “Cut it in two with a blade of water!” I jerked back upright just in time to step back and avoid the blow that was coming at my shin. “For fuck's sake, make a dead spider jump on my face!” I kept backing out of striking range until a faint roar reached my ears.
The cliff.
I glanced over my shoulder to see that my heels were mere inches away from the ledge.
Something hit my back and suddenly, my heart was in my throat and my feet weren't on the ground anymore.
From above me, Lexie screamed my name in panic and Grandma called out, “You've got air. What are you waiting for? Fly!”
Like that was helpful. No matter what she said, the churning sea and craggy granite rocks on the ground below still rushed relentlessly toward me.
In those endless seconds, I fought the onslaught of gravity— pushing the ground away from me, pulling the air to me, squeezing my eyes closed and praying. The impact burst through me and the icy cold water burned in my lungs. Pain consumed me. Blackness swelled over my field of vision.
It was a mercy when it blotted out my consciousness as well.
5
Something was tapping me on my cheek. I wanted to know what it was, but my eyelids were too heavy to lift.
The tapping got harder, until it turned into slapping.
“Ouch,” I croaked. My whole body was throbbing, especially my back where it rested against the hard, grassy earth.
“Wake up.” The crappy bedside-manner voice next to me was Lexie's. “You died again.”
“No fucking shit Sherlock.”
She choked on a laugh. “Wow. I've never heard you curse like that before.”
“Because it hurts, damn it.”
“Yeah, getting smashed like a bug against the rocks and blendered in the current must have sucked.”
“Where—” I coughed up something wet that
gravity wanted to pull back down into my lungs. Lurching forward, I hacked it up into my hands. Finally, I opened my eyes to see red smears on my palms. I groaned and wrapped those hands around my aching chest.
“Where's your grandma?” Lexie asked, assuming correctly. “She went into town to go get some food. She said something about food being the best thing for healing.”
A sharp breeze blew over the field, piercing through the soaked fabric and straight into my bones.
Lexie noticed my reaction and put her jacket over my shoulders. “She was also going to bring a change of clothes for you.”
“Thanks.” I clutched the soft, fleecy material closer to my skin. “Are you okay?”
She shrugged. “I'm fine. I told you I don't feel the cold like I used to.” Even though she said she wasn't cold, she again readjusted the scarf around her neck.
“How long have I been out?”
“About an hour, so she should be back any minute now.”
As soon as she said that, the distant crunching of gravel reached my ears and brought my heart into my throat. Lexie and I both pulled knives from one of the bags as the unknown vehicle approached. When it turned around the corner and entered the open air of the field, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. We dropped our blades.
While my mind wanted to get up to go yell at her, my body refused to allow it. Instead, I lay back down on the grass and it was a blissful escape from the screaming in my muscles. The evil eye I was sending her said it all.
“Ooh, cold.” Grandma shivered with sarcasm. “You've got nobody to blame but yourself. You could have stopped falling at any time.”
“Yeah, like I chose to die.”
“You died because you didn't choose. You let gravity make the decision for you.” She sat down next to me and passed me a paper bag that smelled like manna from Heaven.
“Because dying is so much fun.”
In a split second, her gaze became as sharp as an eagle's. “Because you were afraid of using your own power. Because it would mean admitting that you aren't normal anymore. Because it would mean accepting that your life will never be the same again.”
Duo (Stone Mage Saga Book 2) Page 5