I exchange a glance with Kendall. “Do you really want us to answer that?” I ask.
She shakes her head into her pillow.
Kendall winks at me and starts gathering all the clay up on the ground. He does it with such ease, I can’t even tell he’s trying to perform magic. The clay that just exploded everywhere starts to slowly slide down the walls, across the floor, and drip like water from the ceiling as it moves to collect itself back together as he commands. I see now why this is one of the first things they teach us how to do.
Most magic is just learning how to fix the mistakes you made casting it in the first place.
I sit down on the bed beside Wednesday.
“It isn’t fair,” she says. “You get to control four kinds of magic, and I can’t even control one.”
“Hey,” I say, giving her a good old-fashioned punch to the leg. “You asked for this remember?”
“Not this,” she says. Her face stays buried in the pillow.
I figure there isn’t going to be a better time to bring it up, so I tentatively try to broach the one topic I swore I wouldn’t. “So…Camilla and Mathilda?”
A guttural sound rumbles at the back of her throat, but this time it is not directed at me. “That twat. The gall she has to try and get to me through Matilda…it’s incredible.”
I cut my eyes to her. “And Mathilda?”
She raises her head just enough from the bed for us to hear her.
“This isn’t about her, it is about Camilla. She never should have been allowed back in the school. She certainly shouldn’t be allowed near innocents that are going to be easily corrupted.”
“Innocent, corrupted…I don’t know about that. Your paired seems like she can handle herself. She stood up to you, after all, and I can tell you…that in itself is a feat.”
Kendall, who I can tell has so far been trying to edge closer to the door to stay out of this, snorts in laughter.
I decide to drop the subject before Wednesday decides to be mad at me again next. The conversation had the desired effect, however, and she’s rolled over on the bed and ready to at least talk like a normal human being.
“Besides, you were wrong about something you said.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t have control of my magic. That’s the point of all this, isn’t it?” I say.
I peel back the sleeves of my sweater to see the brands carved into my forearms.
Wednesday sits back up on the bed and Kendall stops trying to escape. Most of the clay has found its way back into a single lump which he sets in the middle of his sister’s desk.
“I can sometimes manage the first three, but I have no idea where to even begin with the other.”
I use the pointer finger of my right hand to prod at the mysterious fourth brand. I know I’ve used the magic once before, but I don’t know how I did it. I have no idea how to even call on my Time Magic, let alone how it actually works.
Wednesday leans in closer to get a better look at the brand.
“It’s a shame you can’t just use it to make this all over with already,” Wednesday says.
I look up at her sharply. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “I mean, isn’t this all supposed to be fun? I thought it would be.” She hugs her arms across her chest and stares at the mirror on the wall with unseeing eyes.
Kendall sits down beside her. He picks up the clay again and turns it over in his hands several times. I wonder if what they said was true, that they no longer share a bond of emotions like they once did. I have to think they must, because Wednesday’s far-off look is now replicated on Kendall’s face as well.
But I’m not going to just sit around and pout. I do that enough on my own time.
I hop off the bed and turn to face them, arms crossed.
“I don’t know about you two, but I came here to learn magic, not for fun.”
Wednesday sighs dramatically again, and I can tell she’s annoyed that I’m the one telling her this side for once. “It’d just be nice if it worked out for a little while, just this one time, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure,” I say. “But then wouldn’t you get bored? Exploding clay is hardly boring.”
“It also isn’t fun.”
I don’t know, I say. I pick up the vase I made in class. It’s already drying now. It still feels dense and heavy in my hand, but it is patched with white where the outer layer has begun to harden from the air.
“Alright,” I say, “then let’s try something more fun.”
I spin the vase around in my hands at a dangerous speed, and then catch it.
“If you were to try and, I dunno, age this little vase here in my hands with magic…how do you think you’d call on it?”
Both Wednesday and Kendall scoot closer to the edge of the bed.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I say, turning it over idly in my hands again. “That with Earth Magic, you have to feel it. With Psychic Magic you have to think it. And with Ritual Magic, you have to do it. And very carefully too.”
Wednesday puts her hand to the lower part of her face in thought. “How did you do it last time?”
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I say.
“Actually, I have an idea.” Kendall gets up slowly from the bed. “During the ritual, you were doing all three. Earth, Psychic, and Ritual Magic, all at once,” he says. “Maybe that was how you were able to do it.”
As soon as he is finished, he sits back down on the bed.
Both Wednesday and I stare at him a moment.
“You’ve got a point,” Wednesday says. She glances over at me.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I say. “But there aren’t many rituals that let you do all three at once. And there’s no way I’m going to try that homecoming one again.”
I shudder at the thought. It drained me so much, I’m still not sure I would be able to pull it off again. Certainly not with all these tests Dr. Fashu is having me do.
“Well then, maybe just try doing two of them,” Wednesday says. She nods at the vase. “Something like, I don’t know, make it float using Psychic and try to shape it at the same time, in the air using Earth.”
It’s actually a pretty good idea. The best any of us has had so far at the very least.
I do as she says. I’m not particularly good at telekinesis yet. I’m too prone to getting distracted by the things around me, but I try.
I manage to make the vase hover just a bit, and then I attempt to mold it using Earth Magic. It may be drying, but I can still carve shapes into the side if I want. I remember the feel of the clay between my hands, and the way the softness has started giving way into something more rough, dry, and hard. For a brief second, small marks begin to appear on the outside of the hovering vase. And then, just as I feel a rush of excitement that it may be working, the vase explodes.
Shards of drying clay are worse than droplets of wet. There may not be so many of them, but they hurt when they thud against the sides of your temples.
Wednesday coughs through the cloud of dust that is the shattered dry clay. “Maybe you should work on your abilities individually a little bit, before you try that again.”
I have to agree with her. I let Kendall help me gather the rest of the shattered vase back together. It’s a shame, really, I actually was pretty proud of it. But its destruction did serve a valuable purpose.
It’s reminded me of just how much work there really is left to do.
13
Octavia
It feels like it was just yesterday that I spent the entire morning being drained by Dr. Fashu, and here I am all over again. One day in between these sessions is not enough. I know that Flynn promised me that those tests to gauge my resistance are normal, but the look on his face when he was told to come in today as well was not reassuring.
I’ve not known Flynn to ever shy away from something schoolwork or study related, so I can already imag
ine that whatever Dr. Fashu has in store for us today is not going to be pleasant.
Flynn joins me late-morning in the elevator on my way there. The only redeemable quality of these sessions with Dr. Fashu is that it means I get to sleep in a little later than usual. It’s a good thing too, since I barely got the chance to sleep last night, what with helping Wednesday some more with her hopeless clay situation and trying not to over think about what Kendall suggested about me working my Time Magic.
If I want to master that one, I’m going to have to master all the other ones first.
Flynn must be able to tell something is on my mind, but he doesn’t ask me what it is. This isn’t like him, but neither is the way his hand keeps tapping on the tops of his thighs and his eyes can’t seem to stop roving from one end of the elevator grate to the other. I guess the meeting this morning has both of us on edge.
Then just before we knock on the door to let Dr. Fashu know that we are here, Flynn grabs my hand for a second and gives it a good squeeze.
Today, it is Jessica that answers the door.
“Good morning Flynn,” she says, and though her voice betrays no emotion, the fact that she only shoots me a look before trying to shut the door in my face on ‘accident’ speaks more volumes than any words could.
Today, Dr. Fashu already stands on the other side of the examination table. He barely looks up at us when we come in, and immediately directs us each to come sit on it. I perch myself on one end and Flynn on the other. Jessica makes sure to stomp her heels extra hard against the tiles as she disappears into the back room for a moment, only to return extraordinarily fast with a lab coat on and a tablet in hand.
Dr. Fashu re-adjusts the light a moment overhead so Flynn’s much larger frame doesn’t completely block it.
“Both of you are finally here,” he says.
I want to remind him that we’re actually on time, early, even if they clock on the wall is correct. Instead, I just kick the back of my legs against the examination table while we wait. The rhythmic brush of my leggings on leather at least breaks some of the uncomfortable silence.
Finally, Dr. Fashu nods to Jessica and she brings out a pair of strange-looking helmets. I think I’ve seen something similar in movies when they need to monitor brain activity.
Jessica places the first one over Flynn’s head, and then slowly, methodically, plants each of the little electrodes along his temples and the base of his skull. I catch her letting the tips of her fingers graze across the top of his shoulders, the sides of his neck the back of his ears as she does so. Flynn just stares straight ahead, his posture erect and his expression impassible.
She does not take the same care with me. Jessica basically plops the device onto my head and leaves it slightly askew. She attaches the electrodes randomly to whatever patch of skin is available, and I swear she pulls my hair a bit on purpose when she brushes it to the side to place one behind my left ear.
“I’ve had a suspicion about something ever since I worked with you, Flynn,” Dr. Fashu finally says. He takes the tablet from Jessica and flips through sever screens pages to look over something he’s written. “You always were able to handle unusual amounts of magical duress. Not as much as Octavia here, but enough to always make me wonder.”
He hands the tablet back to Jessica. His free hand hovers over the table of instruments. He never ended up using any of them last time, but from the way his fingers twitch towards their steel handles, I’m sure we won’t make it out quite so lucky today.
“Like all three of Octavia’s magical affinities opened up a new, fourth one, I think that when a mage has access to both Earth and Physical Magic there are certain additional benefits,” Dr. Fashu says. He picks up one of the tools.
It looks like one of those ear and nose flashlights, but instead of a light at the end, tiny spindly brackets stick out at odd angles.
I am unable to keep quiet. “What is that?”
“This, Octavia, is an agitator.”
I do not like the name of it, and it turns out I have every right to feel that way.
“And it does...?”
“This.”
Dr. Fashu takes the tool, turns Flynn’s arm over, and presses the device to the Earth Mage brand on his arm.
The many spindly points inside grow longer and start waving around once they sense flesh in near. To my horror, they form into the shape of the brand and, when close enough, suddenly strike out like dozens of tiny needles and plunge into the skin of the brand.
Flynn’s arm twists as a jerk reaction, but Dr. Fashu pins it tight to the table.
Jessica takes a half step forward, her eyes glued to the electrodes attached to Flynn’s head as they light up with the same blue glow of the brand on his arm.
I want to look away, but I can’t. There is no blood, no outward sign that whatever Dr. Fashu is doing to him is actually causing any damage, but it still makes me feel sick.
After a several minutes, Dr. Fashu tugs the tool away. The long spindly appendages of the tool pull reluctantly at the edges of Flynn’s skin, and he grimaces. It isn’t until now that I realize he’s been squeezing the edges of the table so tight that even his short-cut fingernails have left scratches on the leather.
He draws in a ragged breath and lets it out a second.
Dr. Fashu glances up briefly from the data that is appearing on the tablet. “Yes,” he says. “It can pinch a bit.”
Flynn looks at me, and his eyes are wide, but he doesn’t complain. I know for sure that this test is new to the both of us.
Dr. Fashu finishes what he is doing, then turns to me and waits expectantly for me to offer my arm.
I just keep eyeing the tool in front of him. “No way,” I say. I tuck both my arms tight around me, my four brands facing in and out of sight. I shake my head several times, so much so that I feel some of the electrodes coming loose from my head. Jessica makes an exasperated sigh and tries to step over to fix them, but I bat her away as well. “Not until you tell me what it is you’re doing.”
The principal may trust this man well enough to let him run these experiments on his students, but I don’t.
Dr. Fashu looks at me like I am a petulant child who has just refused to eat her peas at dinner, but he acquiesces.
“You and Flynn have a significant resistance to the negative effects of magic casting,” he says. “Just like each mage has a personal threshold of power, they also have a threshold for how much it effects them when they go too far.”
“So…” I say, “That’s why that ritual didn’t kill me after Homecoming?”
Dr. Fashu nods curtly. “That is my theory, yes. I am hoping this device will give us more exact readings to test that.”
“Does it affect my resistance to other kinds of magic?” I ask. I think back to how quickly I was able to keep even very powerful Psychic Mages like the principal from breaking down my mental barriers. It isn’t usually so simple, but for me, it came as almost second nature.
“If you’ll just let me,” he motions to the thing in his hands, “We might be able to find out.”
But when I offer my arm to Dr. Fashu this time, he does not go for Earth Magic like he did for Flynn. He grabs my left arm instead, and without asking permission, goes straight for Time.
The device itself feels like little more than a suction cup applied to my skin. The moment those appendages latch on and dig into the lines of my brand, the light within glows brighter than the dull glow it already possessed from being close to my pair.
At first, nothing at all happens.
I glance at Flynn, and then over at Dr. Fashu. Jessica leans closer to him to see what he’s observing on the charts. She leans a little too close, and I catch Dr. Fashu brushing her hair away in annoyance.
Nothing much is happening, and my attention starts to drift. I end up staring past everyone towards the shelves. A moth is fluttering a little too close to the open flame of a candle. It flaps its tiny brown wings, and for some reason, it makes
me think of my own hopeless situation. Drawn to something by instinct, but the closer I get to it, the more danger I put myself in.
I open my mouth to tell Dr. Fashu it’s hopeless, that maybe if I don’t know how to activate my affinity, neither does the device—when something strange happens.
I blink once, and something feels off. Jessica leans close again, and again Dr. Fashu brushes her hair away. One by one, the other brands on my arms start to glow—and along with it, so do the electrodes attached to me.
But I seem to be the only one to notice. I try to move my head to see Flynn, but I find myself unable to move my head. Panic starts to rise in me, just as Jessica once again leans in too close to Dr. Fashu, and again he brushes her away. That moth keeps fluttering closer, closer, closer, and then I blink—and it is a bit further away. It hovers too close to the flame for comfort, Jessica leans in, and Dr. Fashu brushes her hair away.
A panic starts to rise in me. I am frozen, completely unable to move.
The moth flutters. Jessica leans in. Dr. Fashu brushes her away. The clock on the wall does not move.
The light of the brands on my arm grow brighter. I have no idea how much time passes. My perception of it seems warped. I could be sitting here for five seconds, it could be five hours, five days for all I can tell.
All I know is that that moth keeps fluttering, Jessica keeps leaning in, my brands are glowing brighter and brighter and no matter how I try, I cannot move at all.
A slowly creeping nausea begins to form in the back of my throat. Pressure blooms behind my eyes, and my vision grows blurry at the edges. Something wraps tight around me, pressing against every part of me. The tighter it grows, the more the nausea rises, and the harder that pressure pushes.
It grows, it rises, and it pushes. Harder. Harder. Harder still until my vision is not just blurry, it starts to darken at the edges. It takes everything inside me, and what feels like ages, just to part my lips. The only thing that I can see now is the blindingly bright light coming from the brands on my arms.
A small breath escapes my lips. I force it again. This time, a small sound. Again. Again. Again until, finally, I think I am heard. It comes out like the smallest whistling sound. But somehow, it is enough.
Adapt: Book Two of the Forgotten Affinities Series Page 7