by Tom Larcombe
“A lot like that,” Charles said. “There's actually a wizard school out in Colorado. The only one in the US, but it's rather expensive so unless you have rich parents or manage to get in on one of their hardship scholarships, you learn this way with an older wizard taking you under their wing and teaching you.”
“Bullshit, there's enough wizards for something like that?” Amber asked.
“Well, the population of the US is about three hundred and ten million. There's one wizard or person with a magical Talent out of every ten thousand people born. Wizards age differently too, they do it more slowly, so there's even more than that equation would suggest.”
“That's... thirty-one hundred?” Amber asked.
“Okay, so math classes seem to be needed also,” Charles said. “No, thirty-one thousand, but like I said we live longer than normal humans so there are probably sixty-thousand plus wizards or Talents in the population at any given time. The school has room for about one hundred and fifty to two hundred students at a time and there are approximately four hundred wizards or Talents born every year.”
“How the hell do you keep it hidden then? And why?”
“Think about it. If everyone knew about magic and wizards. Then wizards would either be locked up to be studied or everyone and their dog would be demanding magic from them constantly. Do you think a wizard wants to deal with that? Better yet, would you want to deal with it in a few years, once you're trained? As to why? There's a Council of Wizards who set the rules. One of those rules is that magic stays a secret. They've killed people for breaking that rule, just so you know they're serious about it.”
Amber yawned, her jaw cracking loudly enough that everyone in the room heard it.
“Okay,” Charles said. “I think it's time for all of us to go to bed. I'm exhausted and we all know Amber is.”
“I'm good for a while longer,” Amber said. “It's just what I saw is kind of tweaking me out.”
“I believe that,” Charles said. “The body's reaction to stress is strange. But we'll also have to get you back to a daytime schedule. I've got a business to run in addition to teaching you, so we'll have to keep business hours.”
“A business?” Amber asked.
“Yes, didn't you know? I own this apartment building and I've got to keep up the maintenance on it. It's specially designed for wizards or talents to live here. Most people with a serious amount of magic have problems with normal electricity, so I run this whole building on a different style of electric. Means I have to do most of the maintenance myself, but that works for me.”
Amber looked around the room as though she could see the whole building through the walls.
“You own this place?” she asked incredulously.
He nodded.
“I even helped build it,” Charles said. “I'm a lot older than I look. It's part of that wizard aging difference I mentioned. Speaking of which, didn't I hear Eric say something about that.”
“I don't want to think about him,” Amber snapped.
“That's fine for now, but we'll have to talk about it at some point. He also mentioned some things he shouldn't have known regarding magic, so I'm going to have to check that out.”
“Why do you have to do it?” she asked.
“That's my second job. I'm in charge of this city, both finding young wizards or Talents that have no idea about magic and making sure the Council's rules are followed here. So I'm kind of obligated.”
Amber shook her head.
“Maybe this will all make sense in the morning?”
Greg laughed.
“If you're trying to make sense of Charles,” he said, “it'll take you longer than that. I've known him for decades and I still don't understand him.”
Amber looked around the apartment.
“Um, where am I sleeping?” she asked.
Charles glanced at Kathryn.
“The efficiency I think?” he asked.
“If we clean it out first,” she replied.
“Think Alicia would mind doubling up for a night or two? Amber could probably use the company too after what happened tonight.”
“Ask her.”
Kathryn nudged Alicia who was half asleep next to her.
“Alicia, can you and Amber double up in your room for a night or two while I get her place ready?” Charles asked.
“If she wants,” Alicia said.
“Amber?”
“Were you saying I'm going to get my own apartment?” she asked.
“Well, it's a tiny thing. An efficiency apartment in the basement that I never did manage to rent out.”
“But all to myself?”
“Yes, but in the meanwhile, until it's ready, is bunking with Alicia okay?”
“Yeah sure, she doesn't snore at least.”
“Bet your ass I don't snore,” Alicia said. “Sleep like a baby, every night.”
Amber shook her head, but didn't say anything.
“It's settled then. Kathryn, would you take the girls to their room?” Charles asked.
“Happily, I'm more than ready for bed myself.”
Kathryn led the girls out.
* * *
* * *
Chapter 8
“Melting the gun Greg?” Charles asked. “Those bullets could've hurt someone.”
“I didn't think he was going to have a gun, I should've thought of it, but didn't. So it was a spur of the moment thing. Besides the only bullet that was any danger was the one in the chamber and I melted the barrel first so it wouldn't fire properly.”
Charles shook his head.
“A bit too much excitement for me, I think. I'm ready for bed myself. Do you want the couch?”
“Yeah, walking back to my place at two in the morning just doesn't appeal. Does it still fold out?”
Charles nodded.
“Yes it does, but I wasn't going to put Amber there. She's a handful and a half from what I've seen.”
“That she is Charles, that she is. But there's just something about her that makes it feel worth your while.”
Charles folded the couch out into a bed for Greg and tossed him a blanket. When he turned off the light, he noticed a glow on the floor over near the window.
“What's that?” he asked.
When he walked over he found his crystal on the floor, the one he thought had been stolen a few days earlier.
I know it wasn't on the floor then because I looked there, he thought. I wonder how it got back here?
He placed the crystal back on the windowsill, on the inside this time, with the window closed so it would charge in the morning, then went to his own bedroom.
* * *
Morning came far too early.
Alicia and Amber seemed none the worse for wear on six hours of sleep and Kathryn seemed to be her normal reserved self. Greg and Charles, on the other hand, were both feeling the lack of sleep.
“Even with six hours of sleep I feel like I got run over by a truck,” Greg said.
Charles grunted at him. Without his first of the morning cup of coffee, he wasn't fit to be company for anyone. He shuffled around the kitchen setting up his morning pot of coffee. Normally he'd have done it the night before so he could just hit the start button and be done with it, but it had slipped his mind.
Finally he hit the start button and the whirring blades in his coffee maker started grinding the beans. He leaned back against the counter and savored the scent of the coffee beans as they were ground fresh in the machine and fed to the filter so they could brew. Fortunately he'd never had his wizardry interfere with his coffee maker. Probably because it wasn't exactly sensitive to electrical charges. It just needed to spin the blades to grind the coffee, then heat a coil to boil the water.
It was a habit so ingrained in him that he'd done most of it with his eyes only barely open. Now he opened them wide as the smell of the coffee hit him, and saw that Alicia and Amber were staring at him.
“Don't worry girls,” Kathryn said with a smirk, “he'
ll be back to his normal self once he has his first cup. In the meanwhile, just ignore him. He's useless before his first cup of coffee.”
Charles glared at her and grunted, proving her point.
Greg was trying hard not to laugh and being very unsuccessful. He finally left the kitchen and Charles heard him chuckling out in the living room.
The coffee maker beeped to let him know it was done so he poured a cup and fixed it the way he liked it. The first sip opened his eyes even wider and, after a couple more sips, he felt up to dealing with the world.
Greg came back into the kitchen and pointed at the coffee pot.
“Can I have some of that?” he asked.
“I don't know, can you resist laughing while you try to drink?” Charles replied.
“See, he's getting there,” Kathryn said. “He hasn't finished that first cup yet.”
“Enough already,” Charles said.
He took his coffee and left the kitchen. The crystal was still on the windowsill so he walked over to it.
“So where exactly did you go?” he asked.
He picked it up and noticed that it was dirty, literally there was dirt caked in some of the recessed sections of the crystal. After another long drink of his coffee, he set the empty cup down and took the crystal back into the kitchen.
At the sink, he ran the water and held the crystal under it, scratching at the caked-on dirt.
“What are you doing?” Kathryn asked.
“That crystal I lost? It showed up again last night. In the living room even, right near where I had it last.”
“Are you sure it was lost?”
“Yeah, I checked everywhere and couldn't find it.”
“So, back to my original question. What are you doing?”
“The crystal's got dirt caked on it, I'm taking it off so it can charge better.”
“Charge?” Amber asked. “How do you charge that thing?”
“Two ways, I'll train you on one of them, but the other is just by letting it sit in the sun.”
“So it was on the windowsill charging?” she asked.
Charles stopped dead.
“How did you know it was on the windowsill?” he asked.
Amber looked flustered and it took her long moments to answer.
If she'd seen it there this morning, she would've just said so. I bet that means she's the one that took it, but at least she put it back. I've got to ask her how she did that, I know the window was closed and locked when we left.
“Umm, you just had it there, right?” she said, finally.
Charles stared at her and her face fell.
“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I just saw it and...”
She took a deep breath and exhaled.
“I'm sorry, I'll just go, I'm sure you don't want me here knowing—”
“You'll do no such thing,” Kathryn said, interrupting her. “Charles, apologize, right now!”
What am I supposed to be apologizing for? he wondered, but Amber came to his rescue.
“He doesn't need to do that. I'm the one that stole his crystal, why would he need to apologize for that?”
“Because he trapped you, aggressively,” Kathryn said.
“But I did it,” Amber said. “And if you think that's aggressive, you weren't paying very good attention last night, were you?”
Damn, that girl has some backbone, and she tells it like it is, Charles thought. I can see why Greg likes her.
“I'll just get my stuff and go,” Amber said sadly, turning back to Charles.
“No need for that,” Charles said, “you admitted what you did. More importantly, you returned the crystal even before we'd helped you with Eric. I think you're clear as long as you don't make a habit of swiping stuff any more. You won't need to do that now.”
“But... You aren't going to do anything to me because of it?”
“All you caused me was a little inconvenience and worry. Trust me, I've had students who've done a lot worse than that. Admittedly, you managed it before you were even my student, so you've got the record on the quickest one to do it. But I think I can overlook it as long as it doesn't happen again. Those things are expensive and it takes forever to get the good ones.”
He buffed off the last of the dirt and the remaining water from the crystal, then brought it back out to the windowsill, returning with his empty coffee cup, which he filled again.
Kathryn glanced at him, amusement on her face.
“See, he's had his first cup of coffee so now he's back to normal,” she said.
Charles sighed heavily and drank his coffee.
* * *
“Amber, are you ready to start your training?” Charles asked.
“Already?”
“Sort of. I want to show you some of the things that can be done with Earth Magic, and also introduce you to someone.”
Greg caught his eye.
“Are you sure, at least if you're talking about what I think you are.”
“Yes,” Charles said. “She already showed herself to Amber, so now that Amber is living here, I probably ought to introduce them, don't you think?”
“If you think it's best. I need to go home and grab a quick shower, change clothes, then go get the shop open,” Greg said.
“Well, you know where we are if you need us. Probably I'll show Amber the garden and introduce her to Rose. Then we'll get to work on cleaning out the efficiency apartment.”
“Can I see too?” Alicia asked.
“Well, we told you that you'll be with a wizard family so we could tell you about magic. This is kind of like that, but I don't know how the person I want to introduce Amber to will react to you. She can be... unpleasant sometimes.”
The Council's one exception to the rule on keeping magic a secret was for those in a wizard family that weren't wizards. Having wizards for parents didn't guarantee that a child would be one, although it was rare that they weren't
“Ha!” Alicia said. “You don't know unpleasant until you've seen Eric on a bad morning, or afternoon I should say since he was never up before noon.”
“Can we not talk about Eric?” Amber asked, paling. “I still don't like to remember what happened last night.”
“We'll have to talk about it at some point,” Charles said. “But we can leave it be for a little while.”
“So, can I come too?” Alicia asked.
Charles sighed. He could already see that this pair of young girls were going to wear him down frequently.
Wear me out too if they're like this all the time, he thought.
He led the two girls up the stairs, listening to them complaining all they way.
“There's a perfectly good elevator, why aren't we using that?” Amber asked.
“It's slow and it doesn't go all the way to the roof.”
“The roof?”
“Yes, you know I told that my garden was up there. It does as well as it does partially due to Earth Magic, so I'm going to use it as an example to show you what can be done with it. Plus, Rose lives in my garden.”
“She lives on the roof?” Alicia asked. “Why don't you give her an apartment too?”
“She lives where she wants to live,” Charles said, then stopped answering their questions.
What have I gotten myself into this time? he wondered.
They stepped out onto the roof and the two girls stopped dead when they saw the garden. Luxurious plants rose, in some cases, nine feet above the garden boxes that their roots resided in. Charles wandered into the back where there was a box covered in greenery that stayed low to the ground. He bent and plucked a pair of ripe strawberries from the plants, calling softly as he did so.
“Rose, I've brought Amber, the Dilectis Caeli you saw, to meet you. She has a friend with her also, but the friend is a mundane.”
He straightened and turned back to the girls, offering one berry to each of them.
“I thought strawberries only grew here in the spring,” Amber said.
She didn't get the joke.
I guess she never saw that movie, he thought.
“It's magic plus location anyhow,” he said, “plus the variety you choose to grow. These are everbearers so they make berries all year round when it isn't too cold. Plus a combination of my magic and the heat from the building help them out.”
“Oh,” Amber said. “I get it, heat rises so you put it up here where it could get the heat from the building?”
“Plus, like I told you before, you don't want to eat stuff that grows too close to heavily driven roads. Trust me, the roads near here see a lot of traffic.”
She started to say something else but stopped dead, her eyes locked on something near the garden. Charles looked up and saw Rose, in her hummingbird form, hovering in the air. Her tiny eyes were directed at Amber, although they quickly flicked to Charles and Alicia, then back to Amber.
The hummingbird shimmered for a moment and was replaced by Rose's humanoid form. Amber gasped, which finally caught Alicia's attention. Alicia turned to see what Amber was looking at and froze.
“You did not tell me that the mundane was a child Charles. That is acceptable. I may be seen by a child,” Rose said.
“She talks,” Alicia gasped.
“Yes, I talk child. And I can do far more than speak.”
“What are you?” Amber asked.
“I might ask the same of you Dilectis Caeli, for you smell of your own magic, but another's as well.”
“My name is Amber, not Dilectis Caeli. I wouldn't care if I never heard that name again.”
“But it is part of who you are child Amber. Never forsake part of who you are simply because it offends you. Wrest that which offends you into a form that you approve of.”
“What?” Amber asked, her confusion evident on her face.
“I think she was saying that if there's part of you that you don't like, you should work on changing it to something you do like,” Charles said.
“As the wizard Charles has said,” Rose interjected. “He has, as best as I can tell, translated my advice accurately.”