Chapter 14
Regarding Upcoming Events
“Three…two…one…”
I saw the glass plate twinkle in the light before- “NOW!”
Hazel tossed it, sending it flipping through the air glimmering as it tumbled over the air.
I kicked up the staff with the toe of my boot, grabbing it with practice familiarity, pointing it forward and feeling the bolt emit from the stone in the end of it.
The green bolt ripped through the air and collided with the plate, its velocity drastically reducing as the gravity magic hit it like a wall of molasses, causing it to sink and tumble slowly to the ground.
“Very good.” Hazel said, her smile a natural thing. She sauntered over and caught the plate with the same manner you might take it off a stack of its fellows on a shelf in the house. Giving it some inspecting turns
She inspected the plate, waving it like a fan a moment, seeming to try and knock off dust I couldn’t see. “We’ll just do another few repetitions of the spell and then we move on to gravity spells to help improve Your focus.”
A few repetitions translated into two hours worth of gravity alteration.
The tournament was coming soon. Just a little while longer and I’d be testing my growth as a witch against my peers.
Though I worried about that with some of the progress reports my Professors shares with me.
I was passing my classes fine, I was still kinda not so good at sigils, the combat training classes I still kinda just managed to skirt by
As long as I wasn’t paired to spar against Briar I was able to handle things as cromulently as possible, as Professor Teuenfraux would say.
And even now I knew I was ahead of where I had been; the first instances of magic I’d performed with the staff were by accident… and now? As far as I was aware, magic doesn’t happen by accident.
I focused on the feeling of the “not-ground” above me. My feet rooted into the smooth nothing as the gravity alteration spell allowed me to stand upside down in mid air, though for only 30 seconds at a time with the focus needed. Much more strenuous to focus on than bolts of deceleration magic.
I still remembered the way I’d used my first spells, the tether spells that let me yank and pull things. Then temperature spells for boiling water.
First year students spent a lot of time amassing notes on utility spells. Little ways of making day to day life easier for yourself and everyone around you.
Which was fine, just not so great since I was going to be in a tournament of mixed magical arts, one on one duels with nothing to hold us back like in the sparring matches.
But the Aron's memorial festival and tournament was coming regardless of my skill set. And that honestly was starting to make me feel a bit of-
I groaned as the wind was knocked out of me, as gravity asserted itself and pulled me down as quickly as my magic had allowed me to ignore it.
“Not bad. You managed to do a minute this time” Hazel said looking down at me and then offered me a hand up. And helped me get the dirt off the back of my shirt and pants
Grabbing and getting back on my feet the stinging pain slowly dissipated, whether or not I was just better at ignoring pain because of the farm work back home was something I couldn’t reliably say.
Even still I felt a sort of frustration “Am I gonna be ready for this tournament?”
Hazel tilted her head and raised an eyebrow “Stressed or just feeling impatient?”
Tapping the top of my staff to my head I tried to think “I just-well…I just don't think I’m gonna be able to hold my own as well when it comes time to perform. How am I even gonna make it past the first round when my focus magic is something that I stink at”
She worked her jaw in a chewing motion, something that I’d learned was her sign of thinking. “Well, to begin, no one knows if they're gonna get through the first round,” she started, “So that's something that’ll beat you before you even see your first opponent if you let it get to you.”
It made sense.
“And second…one of my own coaches said this; loss is better at teaching than winning.” She tossed the plate in the air a moment and let it flip and turn high into the air, and then zapped it once. I flinched a second as she seemed to have no interest in catching it, bracing for the shards of glass to hit the floor.
Hazel then shot up her prosthetic at the plate, a bolt of green magic hitting the plate at the exact moment it hit the ground. As it seemed to warp and buckle bending from the impact as if made of rubber before snapping back to its normal consistency, before laying still on the ground
“He also said… the best magic was in your head.”
Before I realised the laughter leaped out of my mouth at the anecdote. “Mr. Teuenfraux?”
“Oh, he’s not retired yet?”
“Still teaching combat classes.”
“Then what do you need me for?” she chuckled a bit. “But yeah… don’t over think it. Given how it is, chances are the other students are gonna be overthinking just as much”
“So…”
“Don’t think too hard and it can be an advantage,” She smiled and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Now, come on… need you to try out a new cookie recipe.”
***
There’s a memory I have of nodding off while working, leaning into a pitch fork. Just kinda gently floating out of reality as one kinda does. Being that hazy, almost awake, but just sorta not at all in the moment.
The sensation of being pulled by my overall straps by my dad with a harsh “get a move on, son. Ain’t nap time yet” was the earliest memory I have of being authoritatively brought back into reality; boots sunk an inch into the sheet of wet mud that slowed down my every step as though it too encouraged my childish laziness rather than commit to the work of shovelling fallen wheat into a wheel barrel.
Briar grabbed me with a similar yanking of my uniform sleeve that destabilised my pace entirely and sent me stumbling forward into her before she jerked me to another side again as I yelped.
The day was only just starting.
And now she’d cornered me on the way to the academy.
“Pipsqueak.”
“What is it, Briar?” The sound of my annoyance was hardly contained.
She adjusted the denim jacket as she walked beside me, “Let me ask you something.”
“I guess.”
“Why are you here?”
“This is how I get to class each morning.” My eyes shifted around avoiding making as much contact with her as I could, looking for any possible means of getting away. No such luck. Most of the alleyways lead into dead ends, and none of the businesses were opened just yet this early in the morning, only way out was further into the school, a place she could easily follow after.
“No, no.” she insisted, turning around and walking backwards, forcing herself into my view. “I mean why are you here?”
Trying to avoid conflict I just answered as plain as I could, keeping my voice to a clipped and direct tone “Because I want to be a witch.” I then began walking toward the school.
“Did your family put you up to it?” There was a moment's hesitation as she looked at me, her pace locked with mine “No… you don’t look noteworthy enough to be a generational witch.”
“I wanted to be a witch…what other answer is there?”
“You know it’s not like it’s a gender locked thing, magic, you know?”
My feet locked up, now my eyes locked on hers for the first time; her face was…she was smiling, but it wasn’t her usual way, not the way that was filled with a cruel condescension. She almost seemed to be saying it as a matter of advice.
“I want to be a witch.” There were no secrets between me and Briar at this point. She knew who I was. And I knew who she was.
She knew I was transgender.
And I knew why she held resentment against Calamity. I knew what Calamity had done.
Squaring my shoulders and pushing out my chest, “Whatever you want to imply here, Briar. I’m a witch. That's all I am. I came to the academy to learn. Same as you.”
And I just walked. I walked away from her, and toward the school. There was a tiny wiggle of worry in my head that allowing myself to move past her was more vulnerable than I should have allowed. But this was a statement. It has been months now. Briar made me nervous. But I would not allow her to have power over me just because she knew a fraction of who I was.
And my feet kept pushing me onward. My boots felt the lightest they ever felt as more and more space grew between me and her.
“It’ll never work out!” she shouted. “She’s not as good as you believe she is!”
Empty threats.
Once inside the main campus building I allowed the door to shut behind me, when I turned over my shoulder to find Briar hadn’t followed me I let out a sigh and moved to the nearest wall, now slumping against it as the muscles that had tightened loosened all at once.
Despite the emptiness the words still echoed around in my head a little bit. Calamity wasn’t perfect.
Yeah. Calamity admitted as much to that. She’d told me that Briar’s reason for hating her wasn’t just pointless. But she wouldn’t do something to me like that. I dont think.
A thought unbidden; even if she didn’t do it to me. Should I still want to be with her if she’s done something like that to just one person? Especially if it was someone she had been close to like I am now?
As if my thoughts had sent off a signal “Why hello there madame, is this particular wall comfortable? And would you mind some company?”
I felt the last set of jumbled nerves unravel themselves at Calamity’s voice.
I turned to face her “Only with the cost of you holding my hand while resting with me” I bargained.
She smiled and spun to meet the wall, her right hand taking my left. “Hope the walk from the dorms wasn’t too bad.”
“Nothing too bad, encounter with Briar, annoying but no harm’s been done.”
She squeezed my hand “good.”
The halls were crowded with students, each one on their way to classes or elsewhere as the two of us just stood there in a comfortable quiet.
But then Calamity sighed. I imagined a weight slowly lowering as she pulled herself from the wall.
I raised an eyebrow “What's up?”
Calamity looked around, seeming to be on the lookout for anyone who’d eavesdrop “So to preface this, you do not need to come if you don't want to, but wanna let you know Lentock’s calling an emergency meeting for the coalition this evening.
“The Coalition?”
“The proper name for Lentock’s group.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah, it’s more than just parties, but basically well” Calamity would then close her eyes, running a hand through her hair as if bracing herself for her own reaction as much as my own. “Right, a member of SPYTE was murdered over the weekend.”
“What?!” the reaction cracked out of me like a whip before I processed it fully.
“Hexwardens don’t know who did it, but like-”
“Is this like Amelia?” I interrupted her.
“Worse.”
“How?”
“Theres nothing left.”
Nothing left. My mind tried to run through an internal journal of spells that could do that but nothing came. “what does that mean?”
“That's what they’re trying to figure out. Lentock has a hunch though.”
“How can a spell just leave nothing?” The confusion in my voice was strong. It wasn’t hard to kill people with magic. Petrification spells, spells that burned people alive, ate the air in their lungs, but a spell that just left nothing?
“They, well what little Lentock told me when I saw him is he thinks it was either a full blown disintegration spell, or….”
Before we’d left Fissure’s Grave Calamity had shown me some of the books with the ‘forbidden magic’ the academy had banned from curriculum, disintegrations ripped a person apart down to the blueprints, I struggled with the notion that that was not the worst spell in the book. “Or what? What could be worse than that spell?”
“An unmaking spell”
My silence spoke to my ignorance and fear.
“It’s uh…spell that’s capable of just, well. The name. It unmakes them, a spell so potent that it doesn’t just kill someone, it eats them, eats everything about them. Makes them die and then makes it so no one can mourn them.”
A half whispered “What?!”
Calamity continued “like-I don't know how it does it, but It doesn't just eat you. It eats the very memory of you. You'd die and your loved ones won't even know to mourn you. ”
The swear ripped out of me “how the fuck does that work?” I caught myself off guard as the word came.
“Yeah.” wasn’t an answer but, her tone confirmed that I was right to be freaked out like I was.
“So if it does all…That then how do we know who even died, or that someone even died in the first place?”
“The casters lacked a component; spell is finicky. A spell that powerful will not abide substitution or lack of commitment…at least that why it fails sometimes”
“And so why does Lentock think it was that spell?” and then I had the follow up question, “and how did he even find out about all this?”
“He works forensics with the Hex Wardens. His particular talents lend well to investigations like that”
“Well okay.” How else do you respond to that? To all of this?
“So yeah. A coalition is gonna be gathering tonight, to discuss what might happen and how to deal with it. SPYTE’s got hooks into some of the government recently so one of their members dying. Probably won’t be pretty”
I couldn’t shake the discomfort that was wrapping itself over me like a serpent “We’re kids!” I exclaimed. “How…what-I…why.”
The wall behind me met my back again as balance gave itself away on me. “My birthday is in three weeks, I didn’t sign up for any of this.feeling the shudder of panic start as that coiling discomfort tightened up around my throat
“I know.” Calamity moved to lean on the wall with me, her arm protectively holding me close “Life isn’t fair” then a pause “and the people who say that…are usually the ones who make it that way, Roxanne…we’re gonna make it through this. It’s gonna suck but we are gonna make it. We are kids. And we’re gonna live our lives and there's nothing they’re gonna be able to do to stop it”
I felt the warmth in my chest stirred like crazy to that. “You’re kind of amazing, Calamity. You know that right?”
She smirked “hells yeah, I am”
***
Professor Deridium was incredibly tall.
Any time I saw them I couldn’t help wondering; how the horns on their head never banged themselves on door frames or ceilings of every building they might enter.
Their hooves clicked on the hard tile floor with every step, drawing the eye to a peculiar grey-green shade of skin.
Professor Deridium was a collection of interesting questions wearing a sensible vest and skirt. Questions being; do they have a tailor? Were they born with that skin color? Are you that tall because of your parents or did you drink a lot of milk?
Something about the aura they exuded brought along questions of personal enchantments and extensive alterations for personal comfort.
Perhaps then it was appropriate they be the head of enchantments courses in the faculty
“Let’s see, Let’s see.” The steps they made were with a swift fluidness, as they leaned over reviewing certain students notes as we dutifully worked at transcribing a scar branded into a square patch of cow leather that was a common sign of someone having been “traced.” In this case, the patch was one of an assortment, donated from a local farm.
Movement Tracing Enchantment; a spell meant for spying and information gathering. The spell would be cast. It would feel like a mosquito bite for all of a second and then a second enchanted piece of parchment would then draw a sketch of the path they walked for a duration of time. The paper of course usually being a map.
It was a spell traditionally used in law enforcement, among a host of things that the Professor had outlined.
We hadn’t been taught the spell proper though. “Enchantments like that, amongst you adolescent lot…I can only shudder to imagine what pranks you’d be able to play” Deridium said with a bit of dramatics, throwing large three fingered hands along their face.
Learning how to transcribe the scar that was created by the enchantment however would give us experience in identifying the physical left over certain enchantments. More often then not the energy created by a ritual like this always left something, be it a physical mark where a sigil was carved or drawn, or ashes if it burned the ingredients.
In the case of a sigil, if you looked close enough you could even tell if a person was left handed or right handed. But I had resigned myself to the understanding that I’d need a lot of experience before I could do that.
“My, my, Ms. Vangrove, your brushstrokes are getting a lot more tidy.” Despite Professor Deridium's imposing stature they were only ever friendly to everyone. Made the learning feel all the more easy going.
“If I dare say, I think you’re one of my fastest-improving students” they beamed very proudly
“Now if you could only tell Professor Rhinestrom that.”
“Oh his perfectionism comes with being the sigils professor, they all tend to be up their butt about that field in one way or another.” They explained with a bit of a chuckle.
I suspected a lot of the enchantments I was relying on day to day were probably more advanced. And as useful as I would find such spells that would let me keep track of people that might intend to do me harm I could only be patient and wait for when I’d learn properly.
For now…I’d managed to make spells that made heat and cold, small scale weather phenomena like when I was in the fae dominion…very scattered but direct enchantments.
There I go again saying Fancy book words like “phenomena.
The class continued like that until we were dismissed, the remainder of my day was to be spent studying for a potions quiz.
And I knew precisely where I would do my studying.
I had grown very attached to “Laurels,” the cafe I’d been taken to by Hazel. Its cookies and cocoa and various fruit juices were made in a way that reminded me of my mothers baking.
When I wasn’t in the gardening club at the academy, or with Calamity, I would be here. Or at least I would be stopping by here.
I’d even settled into a regular order. Lemonade, and a chocolate chip cookie
And today was no different.
Except for today. Today I dug into my pocket searching for the coins to get…
To get… oh, cheese it!
I was short on money. Shoot. I looked at the front register lady and felt my face heat up as I awkwardly begun to backpedal my order “Sorry, I uh…seem to have left the spare winks at ho-”
“Let me.” The voice caught me off guard with how absolutely normal it sounded. I looked up, and there she was. The Woman in Pink. Astriel Everhart “Just add her order to mine, and I’ll cover the cost.”
“You don't have to,” I tried to make up some excuse, I don't know why. I just panicked and didn’t feel-
“I insist. Let me.” she said before pushing past me and then reciting off a coffee order that was rattled off in such succession that it could have been its own sort of magic spell she was casting.
She then handed off the money to the woman behind the counter.
And then we stood there. And she looked at me, her gaze probing for some familiarity. “You attend the academy, don’t you?”
“Y-yeah. Started this year.” I tried to keep my voice as controlled as I could. I don't know how but something about the way she listened almost made me think this was a test.
“Had a feeling, you seemed familiar. I have a sister who teaches. I see her as often as I can.”
I know that. “Oh. I might know her then.”
“Ritualistics, and a few other things. Uriel. Has a personal office”
“Oh. Yeah, I’ve met her.” not a lie. She didn’t need to know every aspect of how things were.
She nodded along, “What kind of things are you specializing with?”
“Uh… well, potions, and enchantments.” I caught myself saying the worst possible word in front of the worst possible person.
“Ah. Respectable. We need more women in enchantment.”
Not the response I expected. It was calm, she didn’t seem to know anything.
Then the clerk behind the counter sat the drinks at the counter, Astriel handed mine over, the smile was rehearsed. Every angle meant to be as friendly as possible. Her teeth like a perfect fence around a house in some of the urban areas of San Venus.
“By the way. If your parents are looking, I do consultations for vacation plans, and attorney” before I could process. I was already holding the card in my free hand.
And then I hastily walked away into the recesses of the shop, and hid at a table placed against a wall in a back and out of the way space where people couldn’t really see all that well. Both to study in peace and to be out of sight to process what had just happened. I did a lot of breathing and then quietly pulled out a notebook and began making more notes. Notes on… notes on what?
Mostly transferring things from text books to my notes. I sipped the lemonade and just breathed, picking off chunks of my raisin cookie and thinking about each section in preparation for the potions test that was in a few days.
What ended up happening was doodling kinda. Merlinian Circuit diagrams and-
***
Suddenly a bell rang and my head snapped up. I’d dozed off.
Shaking the haze out of my head I looked at everything on the table, looking for everything I’d had. It was still all in order, then next my hearing properly started pulling in sounds and information on the world I’d become isolated from through my dozing.
“Someone on the city council has been replaced.”
“What do you mean?”
“Leon Taylor. He’s been speaking about adding more protections to the filth” the lady's voice had a sharp edge to the way she said that last word’
“What evidence do you have?” Astriel queried.
“Feminine eyes.” The woman responded “He comes into my shop once a week and something about his eyes look different.”
The circle murmured in partial concern and partial agreement to the outlandish claim
I felt my body heat up in panic. Oh no…oh no, they’re having a meeting. I inched my gaze past the corner of the nook I was in…no one.
The Coffee shop was empty (at least from the angle I stood at), apart from the circle of crones that had pressed a quartet of tables together
Why would they be talking about this so confidently? And in a public space of all places?
Can’t cast any kind of detection magic to see what spells they use here…least I know it’s not a babble spell since I Can understand them…which makes me wonder what the heck happened to all the staff here.
One of the old ladies turned my direction and I ducked behind the corner.
The voices continued, “Even with that in mind, we have opposition in the city council, just a matter of fundraising and maintaining public concern and everything will be fine”
Gotta find a bathroom. Oh…
Aha! I saw a door that said ‘employees only.’
I quickly grabbed at the spiky bracelet Calamity had gifted me, spinning it loosely on my wrist as I channeled the magic and grabbed the door, feeling the lock move as I turned the knob, I pushed through with no resistance.
Turning around to assess the room I was in revealed I was in a closet. Funny.
Needed to be quick about this. But at least the sound wouldn’t carry so loudly.
I pulled my staff out of the pouch I kept it in, trying to steady my breath.
I focus to try and feel out the magic at the edge of the staff and tap it as quietly as I can against the wood, letting the magic line up with the door.
Remember the incantaton….
The Path Uncertain, But Destination Set.
The magic weaved from inside of me into the staff, the stone reacting to my words as the magic around me listened to my intent.
I open this door to reduce my next step.
And then I pushed on the door as hard as I could with all my body weight
The door opened and I fell forward into my dorm room.
Safe.
Holding on tightly to the knob, leaning back and holding my weight as if someone would pull the door open to chase after me.
Minutes pass. Nothing comes out.
I deflate and stumble backwards, walking to a chair and sitting limply.
Alone. Calamity was out at the theater club. And The Coalition Meeting.
Cool. I felt a sensation of guilt wash over me for not being here in time to go with.
Unbidden, the image of the women feeling like monsters in my head came to me. And I imagine what Hazel might have done.
The witch who saved my village when I was a child might have interrupted, fought them? Maybe advocated against their intent?
She was braver than me.
I was starting to think maybe everyone was braver than me when my impulse for every danger is to run away.
The jumbling worry comes out of my mind.
Was I a coward?
***
The weekend began all the same despite me not knowing the answer to the question, but lucky for me I didn’t need to think about it.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen last night. And I couldn’t help wondering; should I have done something?
“So. When you perform in the magic duels there's something you’ll need to know.” Hazel pulled my attention back to the now.
“The Rules are simple, but incredibly important. So pay attention!” She started. As she walked around in the dirt, a sharpened stick dragged through it as she drew a shape.
“One. If you are knocked out of the ring…you lose.”
“Two. If you are rendered unable to cast magic, or continue the duel due to injury, you lose.” She elaborated on that rule “either by way of your casting tool being broken, or separated from you during the duel or suffering an injury that would be exacerbated by pushing past your own limits would be the deciding factor in ending a duel.”
My eyes followed her as a very large circle was slowly started to take a full shape
“And Three…Any lethal spells, or magic designed to permanently hinder your opponents ability to cast magic is prohibited and will end the match immediately in favor of the target of the spell.”
Listening to the rules and observing the ring she’d created in the dirt I was struck with a question “It can’t be that simple, right?”
“Oh absolutely not, there’s more than a few other rules, especially with concerns to the non-combat related aspects in the tournament and showcases, but those ones are the most important of the whole one. And…also technically one other important rule you’re going to need to know.”
“And what’s that?”
“If no one sees you do it. It isn’t cheating.”
“I’m sorry? Are you advocating I harm someone?”
“No. never, but also. You need to be aware people aren’t going to be as altruistic as you might be.” She tapped the line on the ring a bit, as she walked around me “as much progress as you’ve made, you’re gonna be in contests against people from all across the student body in the academy, people who are more experienced and more willing to fight dirty. I won’t say they might want to do you permanent lasting harm…but it’s important to be vigilant about that”
“Huh.” The advice was solid. Especially knowing there was a possibility I might be positioned against Briar in the duels…giving her an excuse to beat up on me and not be held back by a training weapon is almost certainly a recipe for disaster.
“So I’m gonna show you what to expect when you have to fight someone, like really fight someone. Though given you managed to wits your way out of a dragon encounter you might be able to handle anything”
I couldn’t help blushing at that. I had some pretty cool things as a witch so far.
Hazel took a step into the ring now “that all said… take it easy on me, my circuits not what it used to be- Hold on,” She suddenly stopped and held up a finger. Looking out to the forest she scrunched her nose, making a loud sniff at the air “Something smells like undeath.”
“That has a smell?” I asked as the middle finger of the sculpted gemstone on her prosthetic started to glow, priming with magic as she put herself between me and the presumed direction of the smell.
Then all the sound of animal life out in the distance stopped.
Something off in the distance started creating an ominous darkness that moved through out the forest.
“Hazel Goodwyn,” The voice called. My mind tickled as it tried to place the ominous voice, pawing around through the uncertainty that cloaked the light of knowing.
The good witch guided her arm upward, the magic brightening.
“Slayer of Demons, Fog Breaker. Leader of the Sonyay Coven.” The voice carried out a list of epithets in a tone equally condemning and praising.
The shadows slowly began to form a shape, The boots, the vest, the height, the glinting fangs. Everything screamed in my head. Why would Lentock of all people have a problem with Hazel?
“State your business, Dhampir!” Hazel took a step forward, the air filling with a bristling static that I felt underneath the glamour around my neck.
He began to slowly move forward. Never blinking. Clothes still and unaffected by that strange air around us all
Lentock's words were even. Measured.
“My friend needs your help.”
Oh boy, they’re not just transphobes, they’re transvestigators, the most deranged subcategory of transphobes, who have not just lost the plot but managed to create at least three nested layers of the most insane conspiracies you can imagine. Looks like they’re also treating it like bodysnatchers? Deranged.
You know, Astriel giving Vangrove the card feels like a Chekov’s gun waiting to happen…