by B. C. Palmer
It took about half an hour for me to feel like I could say the words with confidence, make the gestures, and coordinate them appropriately. I was still almost too nervous to think straight when I finally told him I was ready, though.
“Good,” he said, and held a hand out to indicate where I should stand. “Just try to relax, and trust the magic.”
“This spell sounds like it’s meant to open something,” I said. “To… part the boundaries of the world?”
Sinclaire smiled. “Very good. You may encounter something very much like it later in your studies; it’s often used in complex elemental magic. Do you feel prepared?”
“As much as I can be without spending days on it,” I said. “Um… just, over the circle or on the side?”
“Focus on the circle itself as the target of the spell,” he said. “Just as if you were casting something like a Whisper spell and targeting the recipient, hm?”
I don’t know why—it was a perfectly useful and common example—but I found myself wondering if he’d been somehow listening in on Lucas and me when we approached his door. Which it was possible he was. What school official didn’t keep an eye and maybe an ear on their own front door?
“I’ll do my best,” I said, and began to cast.
The words were in Greek, and not difficult. The tricky part of any spell wasn’t the individual components but the mental juggling that had to take place. Finding and holding the magic, executing the gestures in time with the words, and making sure everything fit together just right. Timing was everything, and it was a combination of physical, mental, and emotional timing. The chant was short, but repeated seven times, and as I worked the spell I focused the single-point of attention that directed magic outward into the center of the circle, where a particularly complex knot of lines seemed to weave around one another.
By the fifth round of the chant, my fingers were sore and my concentration was wavering, but I pushed through and executed the final two rounds along with a painful hand position that involved hooking my thumbs together and twisting my hands around into a kind of pretzel before the final word left my lips and I pried my fingers apart. There was resistance against them at the same moment that a straight line above the circle appeared as a wavering trace of slightly opaque air. I pulled, focusing my inner and outer intentions into alignment as I felt instinctively what I was supposed to be doing here—prying that line open.
The effort wasn’t one of muscles, but one of will and focus. I hooked my fingers just as the diagram had indicated and exhaled a tight breath as I willed the hazy shape open like two circles overlapping to form a double-pointed vesica piscis. It was when I recognized the forming shape that I gave a small grin and changed how I was envisioning the process to one of bringing those two overlapping imaginary circles into alignment, rather than prying something open.
The change was instant. The shape expanded more smoothly until, finally, a circle of hazy light hung over the slab, the edges vibrating audibly with a high-pitched whine. There was tension still, so I held it, dedicating one portion of my mind to keeping the spell intact. “I… I did it!”
“You certainly did,” Sinclaire breathed. “Very well done, Miss Cresswin. Now, reach in with your mind. Through the opening. Find what’s on the other side and will it through the opening. From that side, to this side.”
It took time to get my thoughts in order and make the adjustments so that I could focus on both tasks. I imagined an invisible hand passing through the surface of the light and into whatever was beyond it.
The response was instant. The surface of the light shifted to a dark red, and a shape began to push through. A sense of malevolence filled the room and my thoughts, as if all the light had suddenly dimmed, and I pushed back instinctively. Whatever it was, though, wouldn’t be dismissed so easily. I felt it shove back against my will, and when I tried to simply release the circle and let the spell fizzle on its own, it was like trying not to think of an elephant—I simply couldn’t force my thought to turn away from it.
Sinclaire stepped forward and made two cutting gestures before he slammed his hands together and barked something in a language I hadn’t learned yet. The single word boomed through the room, a physical force that knocked books off shelves and made objects on the other wall rattle in place.
A spike of pain shot through the front of my head, and I yipped in surprise as the red circle snapped shut.
I was breathing hard, one hand to my forehead, when I felt Sinclaire’s hand on my shoulder. “Center yourself, Miss Cresswin,” he said. “Turn your attention inward and take a few breaths. Imagine your seven bodies moving back into place, all centered around a thread that passes from your crown to your feet. Very good. There you are. Just breathe it out.”
I did as he directed, inhaling through my nose and exhaling loudly through my mouth as I went through the simple exercise from the Primer, meant to clean up the jarring effects of canceled magic on the seven subtle bodies. After a moment, the pain in my forehead subsided and I straightened, my heart a bit slower but still thudding hard with fear. “What happened?” I asked. “What was that? It felt evil, did I do that?”
Sinclaire took a step back from me to give me some space, which I appreciated. He was smiling. “Evil is relative,” he said. “It was likely some low-level denizen of a universe adjacent to ours. That was remarkably well done, Miss Cresswin. I’m very pleased to declare that you most certainly do have a path.”
“I do?” I asked. “What… what path is it?”
He smiled and nodded to the magic circle. “You’re a summoner. One of very, very few in the world. I had a feeling you’d be remarkable, young lady. I’m happy to say that I was correct in that regard.”
“A… summoner,” I said. “Like a theurgist?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. A theurgist makes a request, sets a table, invites a divine being to cross the threshold of this world of their own volition. Summoning is considerably different. You just opened a gateway to another universe, and nearly called something across. In time, you’ll be able to do far more than that.”
I didn’t have words. Fear was still in me, but so was excitement. I did have a path after all. I’d known it in my bones. I found myself standing a little straighter. “That’s… wow. Thank you, Headmaster, for giving me the chance. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing,” he said. “About this, or about the lessons you’ll be taking with me from now on, after your normal classes. Summoning is the thirteenth path, and it is highly restricted. From now on, if anyone asks, you’re to tell them that you’re being personally instructed by the headmaster in foundational magic in order to ensure that your education is properly rounded. Am I understood? This is dangerous, delicate magic. I believe you are up to the task, but secrecy is paramount.”
I licked my lips and nodded, nervous about the idea of taking secret, dangerous, after-class instructions on something I wasn’t allowed to talk about. I did wonder, though, seeing that magic circle… “Sir,” I asked, “I do wonder… Nathan Crowley. Was… he a student of yours as well? A summoner, I mean?”
“No, he wasn’t.” Sinclaire’s face didn’t falter, his eyes didn’t dart one way or another. He didn’t touch his face or do any of the other things that suggested he wasn’t being honest.
Still, when he answered I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was lying to me.
Amelia
I left the headmaster’s office and almost Whispered Lucas right away. Something about the man made me uneasy, though, and I decided to wait until I was further away. Why keep my path a secret? Why, for that matter, was this kind of magic restricted in the first place?
When I judged that I was far enough away, I Whispered to Lucas, “We should meet. Where are you?”
I hoped I’d gotten the spell right, and decided I probably had when his message came back to me, tickling the inside of my left ear. “Library with Isaac and Hunter. Isaac’s in restricted. Come meet us?�
��
“Coming,” I Whispered back.
I found Lucas and Hunter at a table near the back of the library, arguing in harsh whispers over a book. “I’m telling you,” Hunter insisted, jabbing a finger at the page, “this is the same format of ritual. Nathan was trying to open something up.”
“What you’re suggesting,” Lucas hissed back, “is that Nathan was attempting some inter-dimensional heist, and I’m telling you he’d never have done such a thing. He wasn’t an idiot, Hunter. He’d have been well aware how dangerous something like that would be.”
“And it turned out to be damn dangerous, now didn’t it?” Hunter made a disgusted noise and tossed the book onto the table between them before he saw me standing between the edges of two shelves. “Amelia. There you are. How did that go? What happened?”
“You told them?” I asked Lucas.
“Sorry,” he said, “was I not—”
“No, no,” I said as I pulled a chair out at the end of the table rather than by one or the other of them. Whatever they were arguing about, I didn’t want to look like I was picking a side. “Um… can you do the noise thing?”
Lucas frowned and gave a nod before he gazed around the table, his hands twisting and flicking through the spell as he muttered it. The sound around us took on a new shape, as if we were in a very small, dense box. “What happened with the headmaster?”
“I tested for another path,” I said. “And… I guess I passed.”
Lucas smiled broadly and put his hand on mine on the table. “Amelia, that’s great.”
“Why this?” Hunter asked, waving a finger at the ceiling and Lucas’s magic.
I grimaced. “Because I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Headmaster Sinclaire seems to think my path is summoning. I almost did summon something, and I don’t think it was friendly.”
Hunter’s expression pinched with concern. “Summoning.”
“That’s restricted magic,” Lucas muttered. “There aren’t even books on it in the restricted library; it’s practically outlawed.”
That gave me a jolt of panic. “Outlawed? What, like there are magician police or something?”
“Parliament,” Isaac said.
All three of us jolted with surprise at the sound of his voice. Isaac gave an apologetic wince. “Sorry,” he said as he slipped into the chair beside Lucas and put two books on the table. “I said your names, but it became clear the sound was cut off. What’s going on?”
I told him, and Isaac got the same look on his face the others did. “That’s quite serious magic, Amelia. I’m a little surprised Sinclaire bothered to test for it.”
“He must be a summoner himself,” Hunter said. He nodded toward the books Lucas had brought. “Did you find anything?”
“Ah, I did,” he said, tearing his eyes away from me to pass Hunter the book on the bottom. “Mostly a philosophical treatise, I’m afraid. But it was on the list. Bastien Tremere’s Meditations on the Void. It’s a creationist text, but there could be something useful in there.”
Hunter barely acknowledged that Isaac had spoken. He opened the book to a random page and looked it over. “It’s something, at least.”
“Anyone mind telling me why summoning magic is restricted?” I asked.
Isaac frowned. “Well, it’s incredibly dangerous, for a start. It deals with the boundaries between worlds, you see. Go poking holes in those, and well, even well-executed magic can be unpredictable. Usually it’s practiced in large groups for that reason. Like theurgy, except, historically, the ‘guests’ are dragged kicking and screaming and are none too happy when they arrive. You’ll learn about it second semester, in magical law with Professor Xi, but mostly just the laundry list of reasons it’s not practiced commonly.”
“It’s remarkable,” Lucas muttered.
I raised an eyebrow. “Is it? Sinclaire seemed to think so but… something about him, when we’re alone, seems…”
“Suspicious?” Isaac offered, cocking his head.
Isaac could be hypnotizing when he turned his focus on you. His voice held a hint of a British accent, as if he had British parents but always lived in America. He was the type of man that, when his attention was on someone, they knew they had his entire attention. It was seductive, sensual… intimate, even if unintentional.
“Maybe.” I gave a helpless shrug. “I asked him if Nathan had the same path.”
“What?” Hunter looked up sharply from the book, apparently listening closely enough. “Why would you ask him that?”
The intensity in his eyes was almost frightening. I described the magic circle that Sinclaire had me use to the best of my ability. It was too complex to describe in detail. “The thing is,” I finished, “something about it kind of reminded me of the drawing in Nathan’s notes. The one you showed me that took up the whole page. It wasn’t exactly the same, I’m pretty sure, but it was close enough that I noticed. So I thought maybe Nathan had studied with Sinclaire as well.”
“No,” Hunter said, shaking his head. “No, if that had been the case we would have known about it. And if he was studying something like summoning, we would have known.”
He looked at Lucas and Isaac as if for confirmation, his tone dismissive but in a desperate sort of way.
Neither of the other men rose to the occasion. In fact, Lucas chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, looking past Hunter, toward the shelves. “Possibly,” he admitted. “But Hunter… we both know that Nathan did keep his secrets.”
“He might have kept his research mostly to himself,” Hunter countered, “but that’s different. He talked about his classes, about his ideas, about wanting to go further than the school allowed. He didn’t hide his ambition and you know how he liked to brag—he was cocky, if he picked up something like that, he would have said.”
“Unless he had a reason to keep it from us,” Isaac said. “I’m sorry, Hunter, but if Amelia’s right—”
“Amelia didn’t know Nathan,” Hunter snapped. He slammed the book closed and stood from the table. His hard eyes fell on me. “If you get a chance to take another look, try and memorize as much as you can. I’m going to see if this book has anything useful.”
With that, he stalked off, out of the quiet zone of Lucas’s magic and away into the shelves.
“He can be such an asshole,” Lucas sighed, raking his fingers through his hair as he shook off Hunter’s hostility.
Isaac shot Lucas a reproachful look. “He’s hurting, Lucas. Give him a break.”
“So am I,” Lucas replied. “So are you. He doesn’t have a monopoly on it.”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said, fighting an urge to go find Hunter and apologize. When Hunter wanted to be alone, he didn’t always come out and say it but it was easy enough to read. He did a lot of walking away, for one thing. “It’s my fault; I just thought there might be some connection.”
“It’s really not your fault,” Lucas assured me. “Really. It makes sense, and frankly Hunter tends to… remember Nathan a little differently than he was.”
“And you don’t?” I wondered.
Isaac gave a soft sigh, smiling. “Maybe a little?”
“I wish you could have met him,” Lucas said. “Nathan was… not just brilliant but effortlessly charming in a way that made you think he didn’t quite realize what he was doing. Handsome, too.”
“Devilishly so,” Isaac chuckled. “And had no idea of that, either.”
They both got the same look on their faces—gentle half-smiles, eyes crinkled at the corners, lips slightly parted, as if they were sharing the same amusing memory. “You miss him,” I said.
Isaac nodded, his lips closing, a bit of sadness sneaking into his smile that I felt responsible for.
“But,” Lucas said, sliding his hand over the table, palm up, “we live in the present.”
I hesitated for a breath before I put my hand in his. He closed his fingers around mine and squeezed gently.
“Should I be worried about Sinc
laire?” I asked. “Honestly.”
“All magic is a little dangerous at least,” Isaac said. “Some more than others. Sinclaire has been headmaster here for ten years, though, and he’s been fair and just, promoted progressive policies. I don’t know that there’s anything to worry about, and if Nathan was a student of his, it’s entirely possible the instruction was benign—and that Nathan simply kept it to himself.”
“That said,” Lucas added, glancing back at Isaac before he grew serious with me, “Hunter wasn’t wrong about a good course of action. Learn as much as you can, commit as much of what you see to memory. If Nathan was learning summoning magic from Sinclaire, it could unlock his ritual for us. That’s a whole branch of magic we don’t have any resources for, nothing to compare, nothing to use as a decoder ring, if you will—and we’ve covered most of the other bases so far. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was the missing piece.”
I nodded nervously. It was a lot of pressure but for a good cause. “I’ll do my best.”
“We have the utmost faith in you,” Isaac said.
Lucas’s thumb caressed mine. We still held hands. It was comforting, like an anchor or a buoy—both, perhaps. Keeping me from getting swept away in my own anxiety over what I’d seen today, and keeping me from drowning under the weight of it all. I had wanted a path, felt like I was unremarkable without one. Now that I had it, I worried about the implications. Poking at the borders between worlds seemed dangerous, and I’d gotten a taste of it firsthand today.
“You’re tense,” Lucas muttered.
I shrugged and tried to relax my hand in his. “Long day,” I said. “Big news, scary stuff. Plus a lot of studying to do over the weekend.”
“If you like,” he said, “we could… help.”