Delph was poring over parchment for his next class, while I was making flicking motions with my wand and thinking of additional spells that would be good to teach.
The silence was gratifying after a long training period with fifty people constantly barraging us with questions and seeking advice on mastering magic.
“Do you think this is going to work?” said Petra.
I stopped my wand movements, and Delph looked up from his heaps of parchment.
“What?” I asked, surprised.
Petra pulled her wand and aimed it the ceiling, where our fifty recruits were no doubt collapsed in exhausted sleep.
“Them!” she said pointedly. “At the pace we’re going, we’ll be dead and buried before they’re ready to take on the bloody Maladons.”
I glanced at Delph, who continued to stare at Petra.
“We’re doing the best we can,” said Delph sharply.
“I’m not disputing that,” said Petra, now sitting up on her haunches. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not sure they’ll ever be ready.”
“They’ll get there,” I said hopefully. “It just takes time.”
She glanced at me. “Really? Artemis Dale nearly severed his own foot because he employs the Jagada curse like he’s wielding a bloody ax. And Charlotte Tokken keeps hurling her wand across the room with the simplest of motions.”
“They’re not used to any of this, Petra,” I said defensively. “I had a great teacher in Astrea Prine, and it still took me a long time to get the hang of it. And besides that, we were forced to learn on the fly, fighting our way through the Quag, and once we left it we battled the Maladons. It was do or die. And the experience made us tougher and stronger. They haven’t had the benefit of that. They’ve been slaves without one original thought in their heads for a long, long time.”
“And maybe that’s a fatal flaw in this whole thing,” said Petra.
I sat up. “What do you mean by that?” I demanded.
Petra fixed a tight gaze on me. “I mean that what if their magic being taken from them originally means they can never be all that good at spells and such, even when their magic dust is returned to them? You have to admit, Vega, they are an incredibly clumsy bunch. We’ve been at this for a very long time, and not one of them can even consistently perform a Rejoinda spell. How long do you think it will take them to master the Pass-pusay, Paralycto, Incartarata and Embattlemento incantations? And do you really see any of them ever being able to perform the Rigamorte curse?”
I just sat there looking at her as awful, terrible thoughts flashed through my mind. The one I’d had before, of all of them lying dead on the battlefield while the victorious Maladons danced over their shattered bodies, made me shiver.
I composed myself and said, “I don’t see what choice we have. We freed them. They’re here. They’re trying to learn. And we can’t do this alone. We can’t take on the Maladon empire by ourselves. We need help!” And then, full of anger and spite, I added, “Do you have a better idea?”
Petra sighed and lay back in the front of the fire once more. “No, I ruddy well don’t.”
“Maybe I do.”
We all looked at Delph.
He put down the parchment and said, “You mentioned it yourself, Vega. Learning on the fly. Having to fight our way through the Quag. That made a difference. You can’t learn everything in the classroom. You know that.”
“What are you suggesting?” I snapped. “That we take them on a bloody field trip into the Quag?!” My response was more heated than was called for, but I did it because he had just referred to me simply as Vega. So he was still mad from the earlier argument about me going off on my own.
“No, not that.”
“What, then?” barked Petra so sharply that Delph flinched.
“I’m suggesting that we take one or two of them with us on occasion to True or Greater True. They can get a feel for what it’s like out in the real world exercising magic. And if Maladons show up, well, then, they’ll have to fight. And … stuff,” he finished a bit lamely.
“Right, fight and bloody well perish,” commented Petra.
But I thought Delph might have something there. “No, we could start off small like Delph suggested. Go into True with one or two of them and just look around. Let them see things. We’ll do our best not to encounter Maladons, not until they’re ready. But I think they need a lot more training up before we even think of doing such a thing.”
Petra held up her hand with the missing finger. “Vega, you’re forgetting that we no longer have the ring. If we go to those places, we go fully visible. And the Maladons know what we and their former slaves look like. They’ll pounce immediately. “
My spirits plummeted. I had forgotten that. I was just so used to having the ring and the cover it provided.
However, I noted Delph’s anxious face, regrouped and said, “Then we’ll just have to disguise ourselves.”
Petra did not look remotely convinced by this, but Delph said, “I bet this place has lots of clothes and stuff that we can use.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” I said.
“Well, just for the record, I don’t,” said Petra.
“I’m going to bed,” I said. I rose and quickly left before I said something I would long regret.
I did not sleep well.
Petra’s words kept coming back to me.
But if this plan didn’t work, if this “army” ended up not being able to fight, I had no alternative plan. The war would be lost before it was even fought.
* * *
ANOTHER THIRTY DAYS passed, and my spirits began to lift a bit when Sara Bond, a lanky female of thirty-three, performed a perfectly acceptable Embattlemento spell that actually blocked my incantation. I praised her, a comment that brought even more redness to her already rosy cheeks.
Tobias Holmes, on the other hand, was not progressing nearly as well. Tall and broad-shouldered and, I had seen for myself, a bit overconfident in his abilities, he could not seem to grasp the concept of pointing his wand at the actual target. Instead he vaguely waved it here and there, which meant that he ended up being a danger to himself and others around him.
I worked with him until he could at least aim straight.
I had spoken with Miranda Weeks after my conversation with Delph. She took my decision without argument, yet there was something in her look that made me think she was not okay with it. But I knew that Delph was right. She was simply too young. Besides, she had not a jot of confidence in her small bones. She held her wand as though it were a serpent about to bite her. She never looked at the target of her spells. She mumbled the words with no confidence and indeed seemed relieved when no magic was produced. She wouldn’t have lasted a sliver in battle.
I stood in the corner watching her, and others like her, as my own confidence, bolstered a bit by Sara Bond’s enhanced performance, now headed the other way. The truth was, there were far more Miranda Weekses among the fifty.
And several, like Louise Penny and Dom Sadan, didn’t seem to want to fight at all. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that among a group of fifty, I would get a great variety of blokes.
When I glanced over at Petra’s group, I saw that the same held for her lot.
When I caught Petra’s gaze, her thoughts were clear for me to see.
This was a growing cock-up of enormous proportions.
I quickly looked away.
At dinner that night there was one of us unaccounted for.
No one could find Miranda.
We searched high and low.
Until I stepped out into the rear grounds and heard the sobs.
I made my way down the garden path until I came to a bench nearly surrounded by large rose bushes.
Miranda was seated on the bench, her head in her hands while she wept.
Two marble statues were next to her, attempting to console her without a lick of success. The magical rake had a hankie poised on its handle,
but she wouldn’t look at it.
I told them I would deal with it and sent them off.
I performed a wand wire to Petra telling her that I had found Miranda and everything was fine. They were to continue on with their meal.
I sat next to her and waited until she stopped sobbing.
I was loath to break the silence. Sometimes it was better to let the person in distress speak first.
But when Miranda just sniffled without looking like she was actually going to say anything, I decided to plunge ahead.
“Things not going well?” I began.
She shook her head and then broke into more sobs.
I took out my wand and held it in front of me.
“Take out your wand, Miranda.”
“What’s the ruddy use, Vega? I’m simply all sixes and sevens with this … this magic stuff.”
“You’re just very young. Please, take it out.”
Scowling, she drew her wand and held it in front of her. But she didn’t look at it.
“Where do you come from?” I asked.
I had spoken with many of the others about their pasts, but had not done so with Miranda. It was probably because of her losing her mother. She no doubt thought about it all the time, and I didn’t want to unduly add to this burden.
“Why?” she said stubbornly.
“I’d just like to know.”
She rubbed her face and said slowly, “I was born in a little village called Drews. Me mum and me lived there. I couldn’t tell you where it is now, but I remember it being pretty, with crumbling stone walls, a small creek running through it with a bridge over it. I caught a fish for dinner. Me … mum.” She stopped, and her lip trembled. “Me mum was quite proud when I did that.”
“I’m sure she was. Did you go to Bimbleton Station?”
She nodded. “Mum had heard of this train that you could take.”
“I’m sure.”
“So she brought us there. And then … then I remember me and Mum being put on the train.”
She started to cry again, and I put my arm around her and just let her sob.
When she had recovered, I pointed to the mark on her hand. “They took you because of that mark. It shows you’re magical.”
“So why can’t I do bleeding magic, then!” she exclaimed.
She looked at me with red, puffy eyes that contrasted sharply with her dark skin.
“Because magic is hard, and everyone comes to it in their own way. Some faster, some slower.”
“I bet you came to it very fast. I bet you were doing spells when you were born.”
“I performed my first spell when I was fifteen. Before that I had never done a lick of proper magic. I was incapable of it. And it took a very long time and a lot of hard work and many mistakes along the way for me to properly wield this.” I held up my wand.
This confession of sorts clearly got her attention.
“Really?” she said, her eyes wide in wonder.
“How old are you, Miranda?”
“Ten, least I think.”
“I’m nearly sixteen, and I can’t tell you the number of cock-ups I had. The number of times I made a mess of things. But I picked myself back up and kept going. I’ve been watching you for a while now. Very closely.”
“Why’s that?” she said nervously. “You’re … you’re not thinking of sending me back to … to what I was? You already told me I couldn’t fight the Maladons. So I’m no bloody use to you.”
I gripped her shoulder. “I would never do that even if you could never properly perform a spell in your life. You are free now. And you’re my friend. Friends don’t hurt each other like that. You will remain free regardless of anything that happens here.” I paused and said, “And I see a lot of you in me.”
She shook her head hard. “Y-you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“I don’t have the luxury of doing that, Miranda. I don’t have time to make you feel better simply for the sake of making you feel better. Do you understand that?”
She fully straightened and looked directly at me. “Yes.”
“When I first used my wand, I had no confidence. Not in it, and not in me. I wielded it like the thing and I were two separate bits of stuff.”
She looked at her wand. “But aren’t we?”
“No! That wand was created from the wand of Bastion Cadmus, the father of us all. It has a bit of him embedded in it. That bit is now your wand, which means it is also embedded in you. Your wand is you and you are your wand. You are truly inseparable. It will perform for you better and more powerfully than it will for anyone else.”
“But it won’t perform for me a’tall,” she said miserably.
“That’s because you have no confidence in yourself, meaning you have no confidence in your wand. It senses that. It feels that, Miranda; that’s why it won’t perform. Because you, as yet, don’t trust it. And so it does not trust you.”
She stared down at her wand again. This time, not like it was a serpent, but with a look of intrigue; with a look of one considering certain possibilities.
“You … you really think that’s the problem?”
“Did you trust your mother?”
“What? O’course I did. She always took care of me. Always wanted the best for me.” Tears leaked from her eyes, but she held my gaze, which impressed me.
“So does your wand. When you have it in hand, you will never be alone. It wants the absolute best for you, because it wants you to survive.”
She gaped and looked down at her wand.
When she looked back up, I said, “Shall we go into dinner now, Miranda, or … ?”
I let my voice trail off and studied her, awaiting her response.
She stood, holding her wand loosely, as I had originally taught her. Then Miranda turned away from me, pointed her wand at a bush, her gaze set directly ahead, and then, while making the perfect pull-back motion, said, “Rejoinda, rose.”
The flower was nipped off the bush and flew directly into her free hand.
She looked down at it for an instant before her gaze lifted to mine.
Both our mouths spread into wide grins, and then she hugged me.
“I did it!” And then she began to sob harder than ever. She was only ten, after all.
I hugged her back, the tears creeping down my cheeks.
“Yes, you did.”
“I promise I’ll make you proud of me, Vega.”
“I know you will.”
Blimey, it was like I’d just inherited a little sister.
But I had one thought firmly in mind.
I hope you never have to cast a spell in battle. I hope it will be over long before you’re old enough to fight.
And possibly die.
SIXTEEN!
I awoke with this thought. I turned sixteen sessions this morning. Or sixteen years. Delph, Petra and I routinely spoke this world’s language now, otherwise our fifty pupils would not be able to understand us.
Delph and I had been gone from Wormwood for an entire year. It was hard to believe, but when I thought back to all that we had experienced, and survived, it felt like ten years had actually passed.
I dressed and headed down with Harry Two.
When I walked in to the dining room, Delph, Petra and all the others were there.
I made a plate of food and was carrying it over to a table with five of our pupils when I saw Delph waving at me to join him.
Mrs. Jolly and her kitchen staff swooped around, doing what kitchen staff do, and doing it very well.
When I sat next to Delph he grinned, leaned over and said, “Happy birthday, Vega Jane.”
I looked down and saw in his hand a small wrapped package.
“Delph, you didn’t have to get me anything.”
I was actually surprised that he had remembered it was my birthday.
“Remember supper at the Starving Tove back in Wormwood?” he said. “It’s been a year since then.”
“I
know, Delph. I was just thinking about that.”
He looked at the package. “Go ahead and open it.”
I did so and held up what was in it.
It was a finely wrought chain with a tiny disc at the end.
“It’s to wear around your neck,” he said.
I looked at the disc. On it was the image of the three hooks.
“Where did you get this?” I said, amazed.
“Didn’t get it. I made it.”
“How?”
“There’s a little smithy in the back grounds here. Gus, he’s one of them marble statues — a slep, um, horse — showed me. Got a little forge and metal and all the tools I needed.”
“Delph, it’s beautiful. Truly beautiful.”
I put it around my neck. “Thank you so much.”
He turned red but smiled broadly.
My features turned somber. “Delph, about heading off without telling you?”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. You were right. I shouldn’t have done it. And I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. So … so I just won’t do that anymore, okay?”
He smiled warmly. “Thanks, Vega Jane.”
He gave me a hug. When he sat back, he had a funny look on his face. It was as though he wanted to do something else.
“Delph? Are you okay?”
He nodded, rose and hurried off without finishing his meal, which was practically unheard of for Delph.
I sensed someone watching, and I glanced over to find Petra staring at me.
She slowly looked away.
The training had been going really well for a long time now. Artemis Dale had mastered the Jagada spell, and Charlotte Tokken hadn’t lost control of her wand in two months.
Miranda Weeks had made enormous strides, wielding her wand with skill and confidence. But all of them had worked hard and shown true grit and determination. I knew it had not been easy because it had not been easy for me either.
* * *
TRAINING WAS GOING so well, in fact, that I sat with Delph and Petra that night with an idea.
“I want to take three of them to Greater True tonight.”
They both looked startled at the abruptness of my suggestion.
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