Magic Born (8 page)

B
ack in my room
, food waited for me on the table and Alex joined me with his lunch just like before. No sign remained of how the food had appeared. I had no idea if it appeared out of thin air by magic or someone delivered it, but the hot roast beef sandwiches and potato salad were welcome, no matter how they came to be in my room.

“How are you feeling?” Alex didn’t touch the food in front of him, concentrating entirely on me. The lines around his face showed his concern more than his eyes or his words did. Tension appeared in those lines, as if he could only relax when assured of my well-being. I didn’t understand why he cared so much. I was nothing more than an assignment, a promise to his father, one he had fulfilled already. The sensation of having someone care was familiar and foreign at the same time, like when you come home after a long trip away and find your home exactly as you left it and realize that you’re the one who’s changed. It had been a long time since someone had cared, and while I liked the feeling, I hadn’t grown accustomed to it.

“I’m fine. I just want to get this necklace off so I can move forward.”

“Then you need to insist that he take you to Elustria. Casper is obviously unable to remove it.”

I knew Alex thought going to Elustria was best, but Casper seemed equally sure that it was better to stay here. At least here I was in my home world. Elustria seemed infinitely far away and foreign. This was the first time I’d so much as left the United States, and Alex wanted me to leave the world. It wasn’t something I could agree to easily.

“What about the assassin? Casper thinks I’m safer here than traveling through a portal. Is what he says about the sorcerers true?”

“It is true that they try to closely monitor all the portals, but Casper has a way to get through. Even if you had to use a sorcerer’s portal, they would let you through. They want mages out of Earth.”

“But what if he finds me there?”

“Once in Elustria, you would be under the protection of the Council. An assassin wouldn’t be able to get close to you, I promise. The question is, do you trust me?”

I took a bite of my sandwich to give me an excuse not to answer right away. Everything about the situation worried me. Insisting I go to Elustria was as strange to me as insisting that we not. I had no frame of reference and no ability to make a judgment call. The only information I had was my gut feeling. When I consulted my gut, I knew I could trust Alex, that he wanted the best for me. I didn’t get the same feeling from Casper, but he was also the only mage I’d ever met in my life. He was the only one who had a possibility of removing the necklace and teaching me more about who my mother was—who I was. Alex, while well-intentioned, could only do so much. By his own admission he hadn’t been back to Elustria in ages. If it were essential that I go there, my mother would have left instructions for me to go there. Instead, she’d left me a dangerous necklace and done something to it to make it stay on me.

“Of course I trust you, but it’s different for me than it is for you, Alex. I’ve never been to Elustria, and while it seems completely normal to you, the thought of leaving this world behind scares me. Everything in my life has changed in little more than a day. My entire identity has been toppled, and I’m left to rebuild it. I’ve abandoned everything, and the only thread of my life I have left is the familiarity of at least being on Earth. Casper knew my mother, and right now, that has to be enough for me.”

Alex moved to speak, but then thought better of it and took a bite of his sandwich. I could see the thoughts racing around in his head, and I wished he’d give voice to them. After he washed down his bite with a gulp of water, he spoke.

“You know I can’t stay here forever, right? I don’t belong here in this skin. It’s time for me to shift back, but I want to see you safely to Elustria.”

“And I’m not sure I ever even want to go to Elustria. I certainly don’t want to be forced to make the decision. If Casper can get the necklace off, then I can make the choice of my own free will.”

“I just want you to be safe. That’s what I promised my father. I don’t like Casper. I don’t want to leave you in his care.”

“I can take care of myself.” The words sounded absurd even to me, sitting across from a man who had saved my life. “Or at least the talisman can take care of me. I’m not saying Casper’s the nicest guy, but he’s not going to hurt me. Even if he wanted to, the stone wouldn’t let him. I know you don’t venture into the human world much, but Casper Rothian is extremely famous. This isn’t some recluse who lures girls to his remote cabin in order to dispose of them.”

“I don’t like the way he treats you.”

“Considering the fact that I’ve basically attacked him a couple of times now, I don’t really see how I can complain. You’d yell at me too if you’d just been thrown across the room trying to help me.”

Alex shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t.”

The sincerity of his words hung thick in the air between us. I didn’t know how to respond, so I continued eating, and he did the same. When we got up to go back downstairs, the air had cleared, but his sincerity still hung around my heart.

T
he next morning
, I buried my frustrations. The afternoon session with Casper had been more of the same, and I’d slept with the medallion firmly in place on my chest. Despite the failures, I remained optimistic. I had to.

When Alex and I went downstairs after breakfast, all the furniture except for a leather chair had been pushed to one side, and Casper stood in the middle of the room waiting for us.

“I hope you’re refreshed and ready to work?”

“Absolutely,” I said. Alex remained silent.

“Good. We’re going to change tactics today. It occurred to me last night that the talisman may be staying on you because you are not communicating with it. From what you described, the magic you’ve done thus far has seemingly been from the talisman itself and outside your control.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“You haven’t bonded with your magic the way a mage typically does. This could be causing a miscommunication. So I thought we’d start with something that should be a bit familiar. You said ice came out of your hands, correct?”

“Yeah, while I was playing the game.”

“Good. We’re going to re-create that. Now, I want you to sit, close your eyes, and relax with both hands flat on the arms of the chair.”

I rested my head against the back of the chair and shifted until I was comfortable and took a deep breath. I’d already done this before, so at least I knew this kind of magic was possible. “I want you to feel the power of ice flowing through you. Picture water forming into ice, picture hands forming frost beneath them.” I felt the talisman come to life and my hands turn cold. “You’re doing good. In your mind, I want you to say ‘glaze ice’ and picture ice under your hands.”

As I repeated the words in my mind, power surged through me from the talisman. Shocked, I opened my eyes. Frost covered the arms of the chair and crept down toward the seat.

“I don’t get it. I don’t know how I made that happen. Was all of that the spell, or just ‘glaze ice’?”

“The visualization exercises allow you to more easily make the connection with your magic since you haven’t been raised into it. Think of it like training wheels on a bike.”

That made a certain kind of sense—if uncontrollably shooting ice from your hands were anything like learning how to pedal a bike. In my experience, it wasn’t.

“But I don’t feel anything.”

“You don’t feel the energy of the talisman?”

I thought back to all the times magic had occurred. Each was preceded by a feeling of energy in the talisman, but it had no clear edges, no distinct beginning or end. “Sure, but it’s not something that can be controlled. I can feel that the heat is on because I’m not freezing, but that doesn’t mean I know how to control it.”

Casper chuckled. “I know that sounds like a reasonable analogy to you, but the magic is a part of you. A more appropriate analogy would be throwing a tennis ball. You can probably chuck it pretty far, but you don’t feel the strength that goes into the action because your strength outweighs the task at hand. It’s the same here. The issue is not one of having too little power but of having too much.”

My only option was to trust that he knew what he was talking about. “What if it really is different for me because I wasn’t raised as a mage? I’ve never performed magic before. Maybe it’s something that you grow out of if you don’t learn how to do it soon enough.” The idea that it might be too late scared me. Not that I particularly wanted or needed to learn how to use magic, but I did desperately need to get this necklace from around my neck. Until I could do that, I would have no options for the future.

“You’re not the first mage to be in this situation.”

“I’m not? There are other people out there who find out as an adult that a parent was a mage and bequeathed them a dangerous talisman?” I didn’t think I was special or anything, but come on. I doubted this was an everyday occurrence.

“No, nothing like that, but there are people who don’t find out that they’re a mage until reaching adulthood. We call them latent mages.” Casper eyed Alex where he stood to my right and then focused back on me and changed the subject. “As I said, I want to try something new. We do this type of training with children to help them learn how to control their magic. Go ahead and stand and move your chair to the edge of the room and come back.”

I did as he asked, and when I turned from pushing my chair to the side, Casper drew back his hand. The split-second before the red light emerged from it, I instinctively knew what he intended. The talisman reacted before I could even think of what to do, producing a shield of ice that held against the fiery whiplash coming from Casper’s hand. In that same moment, Alex shifted and released a vicious snarl as the red light disappeared.

Casper held his hands up in a sign of surrender. “I’m done. There’s no need for that, Alex. My strike wouldn’t have hit her even if she hadn’t reacted. As you can see, she did exactly what I thought: she used magic to produce a shield.”

“It’s all right, Alex,” I said.

He growled and shifted back to human form. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“As I said, this is a tactic we use with children. Animals may eat their young on occasion, but I assure you, mages do not endanger their children.”

Hatred poured off of Alex. My presence seemed to be what kept him from attacking, though I liked to think that Alex was simply the bigger man.

“What could she possibly learn from that?”

“When children instinctually reach for their magic, it teaches them how to do it in the absence of threat.”

I didn’t create the shield at all. That would’ve required some kind of thought. “But it was just the talisman. I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s because we’re not done. Now, I want you to think back to the moment when I raised my hand. You knew it was coming. And because you knew what was coming, so did your talisman. Summon those feelings, that bit of fear you felt, but instead of thinking just about protecting yourself, think about attacking. I pose a threat to you, and you must eliminate me. How do you do it?”

My stomach shifted uneasily at this turn of events. Fighting computer monsters was one thing, but I’d never been a violent person.

“I’m not comfortable with this. I could kill you without realizing it.”

“Your talisman will protect you from imminent threat, but it’s not going to kill me. Besides, I have defenses of my own.”

I looked to Alex and he gave me an encouraging nod. Apparently he was all for experimenting with magic if the target was Casper. I closed my eyes and tried to summon the apprehension I’d felt when I’d realized what Casper was doing. The thought flitted through my mind that I should learn how to do this with my eyes open at some point, but for now, I was all about baby steps.

“Good, your talisman is glowing. You’ve activated your magic. Now all you need is a spell. Say ‘hydro-ball’ and picture a ball of water.”

I murmured the word, half scared of what they’d do.

“You have to mean it, Kat. Summon that fear and mean it.”

I said the word again, emphatically, but nothing happened.

“Kat, I’m going to attack you again if you don’t do it. Open your eyes.” When I did so, I saw him raise his hand back as he had before. When he opened his mouth to cast the spell, I hurled a giant ball of water from my hands.

Casper easily blocked the water and smiled. “See? You did it! Do it again. Eventually, you won’t have to feel threatened to do it.”

A ball of water burst from my hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. This time I felt that I was the one controlling it instead of the stone. To prove it to myself again, I hurled a ball of water at Alex, who noticed a moment too late to jump out of the way. The shock in his wide eyes as water dripped from his hair threw me into a fit of laughter. After the weekend I’d had, it felt good to laugh.

“I knew you could do it.” The smile on Casper’s face filled me with pride. Pleasing him satisfied me, made me want to learn more. “You can conjure water any time you like. Maybe you just want a sprinkle from your fingertips.” As he said this, he demonstrated, wiggling his fingers as little droplets fell from his fingertips. “Or maybe you want to do something more elaborate.” The water from his hand now took on a steady flow and he arranged it in front of him into the shape of a fat cherub spitting water into the air. “You can say a spell out loud or in your mind, it makes no difference.”

Watching Casper exercise such intricate control over the water he commanded filled me with awe.

“And how exactly will this help her remove the talisman?” Trust Alex to be a downer when Casper was showing off.

“It’s putting her more in touch with her magic. I want to spend most of the day getting her familiar with the power so she can command it. Once she’s comfortable, we’ll see if she can command the talisman to remove itself. But I don’t want to try too early and mar the day with frustration and disappointment like yesterday. I understand it may be boring for you. You’re welcome to shift or go upstairs.”

“No, I’m staying right here.”

“All right then. We’re going to have a little fun. Kat, picture ice like you did earlier, but this time say ‘ice arrow’ and shoot one from your hand. Give it a try.”

“Ice arrow.” A sad little ice arrow flew a few feet and then dropped to the ground.

“Mean it. It’s your emotion that fuels it.”

The second attempt sent an arrow crashing into the wall.

“Excellent! Now I’m going to move about the room and I want you to try to hit me. Don’t worry, you won’t hurt me.”

“Are you sure?” The arrow had shattered like glass.

“Positive. Hit me.”

I took aim, but my arrow didn’t even make it three feet.

“You can do better than that. Hit me.”

After a few more attempts to strike him, I got into the same playful mood Casper displayed. As I moved around the room, I shot ice from my hand, almost hitting him a few times.

“I don’t know how you ever managed to get the title ‘Hades Killer.’ Must have been a glitch.”

“Oh, we’re playing like that?” The next arrow I shot would have hit him had he not deflected it with a spell.

“That’s what I’m talking about. You got this. Hit me.”

Casper feinted left in front of Alex and then darted right, but I’d already cast left. The arrow penetrated Alex’s shoulder, pushing him flat on his back. A strangled yelp escaped his mouth before he clenched his jaw against the pain.

“Oh shit.” When I got to him, the water drenching his shoulder was tainted by a pink swirl of blood that quickly darkened to red. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault,” Alex said through gritted teeth as he glared at Casper. If it weren’t for the blood steadily streaming from his shoulder, I thought Alex would attack Casper right then.

“Let me look at it.” Casper knelt down beside me. He placed a hand over Alex’s shoulder, and I couldn’t quite tell if Alex’s grimace was from pain or a desire to avoid the touch. Casper muttered a spell that dried the area and then another that slowed the bleeding. “How is that? Better?”

Alex looked at his shoulder and nodded. He moved the joint in slow circles, wincing in pain. “I should be fine.”

“No, you’re not fine. I shot you.” Alex was acting as if he’d skinned his knee falling off a bike.

“Shifters might not have much magic, but we do heal quickly. With the bleeding stopped, the healing process will proceed even faster now.” The fabric of his shirt had already mended itself. I assumed it must be part of the enchantment placed on it by my mother.

No matter what Alex said, I couldn’t escape the fact that I’d shot him, the person who saved me. Even accidentally, it shouldn’t be possible for me to do something so horrible.

“Alex, I’m really sorry.” I kept my hand on his cheek, trying to convey how horribly I felt, how concerned I was for him, how much I cared. He withdrew from the touch and struggled to his feet.

“Like I said, it’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it. Accidents are bound to happen. It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“He’s right, Kat. Why don’t you take him upstairs to get some rest? I’ll have lunch sent.”

“I don’t need rest.” Now Alex was just being petulant. Any other time he’d jump at the chance to get away from Casper.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “And even if you don’t, I need to eat and relax.” I stared him down, meeting his gaze with a fierceness I hoped communicated that I’d carry him upstairs if I had to.

“Fine.”

Careful to bury my smug smile, I wrapped my arm around his waist and helped him upstairs, grateful for the chance to help him. My physical support didn’t do much, but I enjoyed the contact. The thrill that ran through me at his touch made me believe he enjoyed it just as much—or so I hoped.