Mage of Shadows

by Austen, Chanel

  Raferty wasn't a person who would enjoy an unnecessary intrusion into her life, asking for her help and giving nothing in return. That was how I would seem to her, it would probably be better to find another source.

  But it wouldn't hurt to ask.

  I approached her.

  "That's a good score," I said quietly, drawing her attention. Eliza's eyes flicked towards the sound of my voice, and she sized me up the way I would size up someone I was about to fight.

  "Thank you." Her answer was short, neutral. I didn't hear suspicion, but I knew it was there- or was quickly coming to the surface.

  I followed up immediately with the real reason; I didn't think she would appreciate small talk, "I was wondering if you could tell me how you studied for the test."

  I saw her eyes dart away now, to glance at our lab-mates. Her arm brought her test protectively against her side. Eliza didn't want to draw attention to her score; she apparently didn't care for attention. I was glad I had the forethought to keep my voice low. It was a long few seconds before her cautious gaze turned back to me.

  "I just studied," Eliza replied nonchalantly, "I didn't do anything special." The girl turned her back to me to stuff the test into her backpack.

  I felt a spark of annoyance flare and come to rest in my right hand. I clenched it to keep it there. I wasn't asking her to give up her firstborn. I just wanted help getting an A in the stupid class.

  "Please," I said softly, "I did really bad, Eliza."

  Begging might work better, even though it galled me to do so. I wasn't used to asking others for help. But hadn't I been trying not to make the same mistakes I had made in the past? Not asking for assistance when I needed it was definitely one of my past follies.

  Her backpack had only been half-zipped when Raferty stopped. Slowly, the curly haired girl stood up and turned to face me again. I didn't even have to fake the desperate look, it was real. As shamed as I felt to bring to the surface and let her see, it was there.

  Eliza's eyes softened, "Maybe we can talk after lab." She admitted, but still sounded a bit reluctant.

  I smiled at her, "Thank you," and I really meant it.

  Could it really be so easy? I wondered to myself as she turned away from me to set up her lab station.

  In high school I had always tried to be the tough, cocky guy. The one with the quick mouth, not a quick mind. My swaggering personality and the crowd I ran with kept me safe through those troubled teenage years. For most of my life I was short, scrawny, and introverted. Add glasses and a tendency to be too afraid to fight back… well, it wasn't a pretty picture.

  Magic gave me the confidence boost I needed even if I knew I couldn't tell anyone about my gifts. I suddenly knew I was special, better than the idiots that taunted me. It wasn't an overnight shift, but I stopped taking crap from people and fought back. Sometimes with words, sometimes with fists, and never with magic… but I stood up for myself.

  I didn't always win. Really to be fair, I basically never won. However fighting back was enough; I was suddenly saddled with the reputation of being a short fuse. For a few months, I was very satisfied with that reputation… and very alone.

  But then I found another mage. Then another, and another… I woke up one day and found myself by people I thought would always be in my life. They weren't all my age, and none were perfect… but they were mine.

  I came to love them, a family that understood me like my parents never could, they accepted me.

  But that was another time, it was different now, and I had to shift gears accordingly. I would acknowledge my weaknesses and accept them. I had hit a few speed bumps so far, but no plan was ever perfect.

  The rest of lab went quietly, more so than usual. My usually boisterous classmates were noticeably subdued, probably due to their test results. I doubted most of them did much better than myself. I remembered my orientation guide's cheerful warning that most introductory classes had drop rates exceeding fifty percent before finals. College apparently was a hard adjustment for everyone, not just me.

  I had silently vowed I wouldn't be one of the droppers.

  Eliza waited quietly for me to finish my lab, and we left together afterwards at a slow walk.

  "Pre-Med?" She had asked almost immediately.

  I was startled by her forward approach, but nodded affirmatively to her question. That assent seemed to open up the floodgate, and she began to speak so rapidly I found it suddenly difficult to follow.

  "Most people don't take classes seriously, I've noticed. I'm guessing you pulled an all-nighter or something similar for this test? I've been studying since the first lecture, that's what you should do too. People here don't have any self-control, they put things off forever just to have fun and it's going to ruin them. If you want to be different, then it's all about putting your studies in front of everything else, do you know what I mean?"

  "Yeah, I-"

  She cut me off to start talking again. Apparently it was a rhetorical question and she was just pausing for breath.

  "It's my second semester here; I took three classes in the summer and got a B+ in one of them. I haven't got a B in any class in over three years, but I took for granted how easy it was to get into the school here. The classes here are not easy, because the science teachers usually don't care about their students as much as their research projects. I've noticed the teaching can be very sub-par."

  I quietly absorbed as much information as possible from apparent well of knowledge. I hadn't heard Eliza speak this much in the whole two weeks that I had known her. Granted, she didn't initiate conversations in lab with the rest of us, but still. Oblivious to me reassessing her, she continued to chatter on.

  "…Most of the professors, especially in the science departments, are tenured and have their own labs. They care a lot more about their projects and graduate students than the average undergraduate student who is just taking their class. I mean, come on, our class has over four hundred students. You think Professor Thomas knows even ten students by name right now? No. He doesn't. If you want to succeed, you have to do it on your own and be smart about it…"

  On she went as we exited into the chilled air of a fall afternoon. The sun was attempting to peak around lazing clouds that refused to let it shine fully. We moved in step out of the shadow of the Chem building, walking towards the library. A cool wind blew across my face and reminded me to zip up my light jacket.

  I repressed a wincing yawn, still exhausted from last night's misadventures. I resolved to use the time between now and my next class to put my head down and rest a little bit.

  My mind distracted by the promise of some relaxation, I had almost missed the abnormal amount of police on the university grounds, especially when we neared the center of campus. Whilst it wasn't strange to see cops on the campus, they were usually cuffing some bum and tossing him in a police car. Today, there were simply milling around cautiously, meeting the eyes of students and then looking past them. Many were referencing small rectangular slips of what looked to be white cards.

  Eliza and I passed one such officer, and I managed to steal a glance at the front of the card. To my horror, a rough sketch of a hooded teen- of me- was what the police officers were looking at. Somehow they had guessed that the perpetrator of last night's attack went to school here. I had no idea how, but it made my heart hammer with fear. Just when I thought I was done with what had happened…

  I tried to force myself to calm down and listen to Eliza's chatter. The officer I just walked by looked me right in the eye and didn't recognize me. I was safe; the sketch wasn't enough to identify me. Honestly, it wasn't even that good of a sketch considering half of my face was covered by a hood.

  I was safe… I had to be.

  "Are you even listening?" Eliza noticed my drifting attention; she stopped in her tracks suddenly to face me.

  "What?" I shook out of my reverie, "Yes, I am, really! Sorry… it's a lot to take in."

  She stared at me, contemplating. I
shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, but attempted to maintain eye contact… I had faced down worse than a rambling eighteen year old girl.

  The girl didn't seem to believe me as she studied my face, "Nick, do you even want to become a doctor?" Eliza finally sighed.

  My mouth opened immediately to affirm; of course I wanted to become a doctor… I was pre-med. But under the scrutiny of her gaze, I found myself mute. None of my usual excuses came and I felt at a loss.

  "No." I said finally. A frustrated weight seemed to unburden itself from my shoulders, "I… don't laugh, but I always saw myself as more of a reporter. Traveling to amazing places, telling the news how it is. Not like those stupid anchors that are fed lines from a teleprompter. But seeing the news and writing it out myself. People would read what I wrote; I would find the absolute truth and tell it as I saw it. Exactly as I believed it was."

  My cheeks tinged, and I felt embarrassed to admit it. Eliza was almost a complete stranger, but she had hit a nerve. She was staring patiently, as if waiting for me to continue.

  I added, "My father always said it wasn't a real career choice." It sounded lame, coming from my mouth… but how could I accurately express it to her? My father was of a looming height, with eyes that were a frightening mirror of my own. He had a stern countenance that left no room for arguing. It was a major victory for me being able to come here at all, even though I had been waitlisted at his alma mater anyways.

  "You should do what makes you happy." Eliza replied pointedly.

  My smile was a brittle one, "My father says that having a career devoted to helping others will make me happy." I could tell that she still didn't understand. It was something difficult to put into words. She probably had the kind of parents that told her to 'follow her heart' or whatever. Not all of us were that lucky.

  How could I express how crushing it was to realize during our arguments about college, that my father saw me as an embarrassment and a failure? Secretly, deeply, I wanted nothing more than to make him proud of me. That would be happiness enough.

  Also, I wasn't stupid. I knew how hard it was to make it as a career reporter. It didn't help that I didn't have a very dedicated mind. I found it easy to read, but hard to actually write.

  The words always came out flat, misrepresenting the beauty I imagined in my mind. No one would ever mistake me for a great writer… I was no Dickens, or Hemingway, or Tolstoy. I could read their words, feel inspired, but I would never be one of them.

  "That is a career for a young man who has the luxury of dreaming. You are no such man, Nicholas."

  I could hear him even now. There was no help from my mother either, especially near the end of my senior year in high school. With her, there were only more tears.

  "Just listen your father, Nick, he only wants what is best for you."

  I would listen, I would become a doctor… and I would become a damn good doctor. I would prove to both of them that I could do it.

  My father shattered my dreams, and my mother refused to help me pick up the pieces. They made a wonderful pair of parents, certainly made for each other. At times I felt like I despised their lack of belief in me as much as I loved them. Even with the resolve to prove myself worthy to them, I wondered… why couldn't they just support me? Encourage me to do what I wanted with my life?

  We had begun to walk again and Eliza didn't speak again. Perhaps she sensed the hidden turmoil of my reflections, which I had thought to be buried away and left behind in the home I had left behind… perhaps I had just been fooling myself, I realized as we walked.

  It was the sight of the officers in front of the UGL that pulled me back to the present.

  The first was a formidable looking man, tall and good looking in his uniform, with fair features and mussed brown hair. He held the sketch that I now knew to contain my hooded face, glancing at passing students with only the barest of efforts. His other hand was held easily on the butt of his gun, although his relaxed posture told me that he didn't believe he would be pulling it any time soon.

  However impressed I was with the male, it was the female officer that caused my heart to begin a pitched drumbeat.

  Dark hair was done in an efficient bun, pulled from her face and giving her sharp eyes a clear view of everyone who passed. In the light of the afternoon, I could easily see the high cheekbones that cut severe parallels with her slightly jutting jaw. There was nothing ruffled about her appearance, her uniform immaculate. She held no photo in her hand, but unlike her partner, her eyes beadily trailed every passerby.

  Her holster was noticeably empty, gun missing. Her weapon was in the hands of the mage who had nearly took me out the night before. I doubted he would simply acquiesce to giving it back, even if I asked him really, really nicely.

  She was the officer who had chased me down on foot, and I believed her good looking companion was the same as well, Officer Wilson. With every step Eliza and I took towards them, my heart seemed to skip a beat. I thought of turning away and changing our current direction- but I feared she would notice that. No brilliant plan came to my mind to fix our horrible collision course, and I felt as if I was walking straight to my doom.

  Closer and closer we came, moving to pass around the officers, only but a few arm lengths away from the pair and I felt that hawk-like glare turning to me.

  I found myself wondering what prison would be like.

  It was the glow of the Wilson's cigarette that saved me at the moment, as he took a long drag and gave me a sudden idea.

  I made a desperate grab for my power, with only the caution to hold a small bit of it. It came to me easily and I directed my will towards that fiery pinprick of light…

  The result was instantaneous. The cigarette burst into flames.

  With a startled curse, the officer dropped it in surprise. The attention of my nemesis was diverted, and I heard the audible smack of her hand against his shoulder as I passed as nonchalantly as I could manage.

  Eliza stopped to stare with wonder at the rapidly vanishing flame, which would leave the cigarette in cinders.

  "Damn, Rodriguez- don't hit me!" I heard Wilson choke out, still surprised by his cigarette spontaneously combusting.

  "I told you not to smoke on the job!" Her irritating tone was familiar as well, but I didn't turn back to look upon my lucky triumph over the now named 'Officer Rodriguez.'

  I kept moving. Eliza caught up with me when I neared the mouth of the library.

  "Did you see that?! Did you?!" She sounded breathless, "His cigarette… it just burst into flames… that's against the law of conservation of energy, I think… or maybe…" She suddenly seemed uncertain, "Maybe I was just seeing things."

  I hid my smile and just shrugged my shoulders, "It was definitely weird, but weird stuff happens all the time. There's always a logical explanation, right?"

  "Right." She replied automatically, seeming much more certain now that there had been some easy trick she had missed that would explain everything. There always was when people came upon something they didn't understand. No deception was necessary for the most part to keep magic hidden.

  People closed their eyes to it anyways.

  I could probably dance around with fireballs alight in my hands, and Eliza would only demand what I had drugged her with. Folks seemed to think it far more likely to believe that they were losing their minds than to admit what they were really seeing was truly magic.

  We had been standing near the doors of the library and I barely noticed him as he lightly bumped into my shoulder, an easy accident. If not for the moment his finger deliberately tapped against mine as he went to enter the library, I would not have given him a second thought.

  That single tap sent a fierce jolt running up my arm, flooding into my brain and against my central processes in a very familiar way.

  It was like the moment when you suddenly remember the name of a long forgotten friend, my mind flooded with a sparking sensation of recollection. I didn't know him but this person was famili
ar to me in a way that few could intimately grasp.

  Another mage. I sharply looked at him again, really seeing him for the first time.

  His black shirt was what I noticed, long-sleeved with bolded white words emblazoned across the front that read, THERE ARE 10 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND BINARY AND THOSE WHO DON'T.

  Hah. I got it after a second. Nerd jokes.

  He had a few inches of height on me which made him relatively tall, but much like me he was slight of build. Deep green eyes behind wired frames struck out, meeting my own without reservation or excuse. His easy smile was a half-turn of the lips that seemed to play out naturally on his features. With a slightly peaked nose and a shock of brown hair, it was a face that seemed made to smile. A face that set people at ease.

  It made me nervous.

  "Sorry." The apology matched the grin, cheerful and not a bit of regret.

  "No problem." I replied automatically, and he continued into the library without pause.

  Eliza was staring at me with furrowed eyebrows. I must have looked decidedly stupid, staring open mouthed after a random stranger who had innocuously bumped into me.

  "Are you alright?" She asked slowly, as if talking to a particularly stupid child.

  "Fine." I said, my thoughts racing as I faced her for a moment. "Look, Eliza, I really appreciate the help but I have to go. I… just saw someone I need to catch up with. I'll see you soon!"

  A very rude farewell to part with, but no one would ever call me the most conscientious person alive. I dashed into the library through the glass paned doors, my eyes never leaving the back of the other mage's head. The lobby was sparsely filled, some students walking the opposite way and exiting, but it was easy to move past them. I saw him head past the library sensors set up to make sure no one walked out with a book and towards the stairs, his pace never changing.

  Although my heart thudded with anticipation, my slow-taken steps betrayed my caution. I could still see the disconcerting smirk of the User I had met last night, and remembered how easily he had disarmed me. Not only that, he had known my name as well.