Chapter Ten - Magic Practice
CHAPTER TEN
Magic Practice
I’D CONSIDER THAT I made it through the first week as a monumental win. The stack of books at the end of my bed stared at me, but after spending most of Saturday cooped up in my dorm room to catch up on studying, I was ready to get out and see more of the school this morning.
After using the dorm showers, I went for the sweater designed with the school colors and black wool leggings, letting my hair fall down over my shoulders. The common room of floor A appeared to be mostly empty this early.
My hand brushed over the potted ivy while the fireplace crackled. I walked over to one of the windows, finally showing a hint of sun and bits of clear sky through the thick clouds .
It was a perfect day to head out to try to get some magical practice out on the field, which apparently had a barrier to prevent stray magic from leaving it since it was also used for Magical Combat. I could get some water and air practice in.
A cough sounded behind me, I turned to find Christina and Ruby staring at me from across the room. Christina’s eyes narrowed, her small nose stuck in the air, with her arms crossed.
“You need to stop hanging out with Caleb. It’s sending the wrong message about you,” Christina said.
Ruby looked bored as she added, “She’s really going out of her way to let you know.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked Christina.
“We were together last spring, and he’s still interested in me. His parents even invited me to dinner next month. Believe me, he’s not looking to get serious with you,” Christina said.
I remembered the frustration of when he was done talking to his parents this week. It made me wonder about just how much they were forcing him to do, or if what she was saying was something he wanted. He did say he had scheduled dinners coming up… It didn’t matter. He knew this was just fun to me, but I also had no interest in being the other woman.
“Last spring? What’s that mean now? So, you’re together, or you’re not?”
“His parents invited me over for dinner next month,” she repeated, like I didn’t hear her the first time. “You might not be aware, but these dinners are for combining families. ”
“And?” I got what she was saying, but wanted to hear her say it. It sounded like some arranged thing. If that was the case, I understood him wanting to use college to have fun.
Anger that I didn’t seem to be getting her point turned her face bright red, her fists balled at her sides as she quickly got even more flush. “He’s going to be a council member! He’s not interested in someone who can barely do magic. Stay away from him.”
Before I could respond, embers started flowing from the common room fireplace, growing and landing on the carpet all around me.
The embers started small, but they were all my mind could focus on. She knew I struggled with fire in our Basic Magic class. Her easy laughter became a blur, followed by distant snickers of whoever joined us. I couldn’t focus on that, one second was all it would take to lose grip on that little control I had been holding onto since feeling my magic being called to the surface when arriving in the Unenchanted.
The fire danced in a circle, pouring out like snakes from the fireplace, cycling all around me and growing higher, smoke billowed from it. As the flames grew all around me, the heat warmed my skin, and the little hold I had always trained myself to have was slipping.
“Stop,” I managed to croak out, not about to focus on their response. I could no longer see past the flames circling me in a display of magic.
My heartbeat thrummed in my ears, my throat hoarse from sheer panic. I had no idea how bad the fire was, if it was my panic, or the flames really were consuming everything around me. Sweat beaded my skin all over, my eyes flashed back and forth looking for a way out. Before I knew what I was doing, my magic was calling to the surface, wanting a release, wanting to protect me in the way it knew I needed right now. It called to get me safe.
Not shadows. Not shadows. Not in front of everyone. I said to my magic that was aching to be released.
The flames lapped at the sides, burning the edges of my clothes and the last of my resolve. I let water magic pour from me, pushing it into the ground. Waves blasted all around me, uncontrolled, and unrefined. There was no holding back.
Before I knew it, I was curled and kneeling on the ground, taking heavy breaths, but it didn’t stop. At the same time, vines sprawled from where I knelt and covered the ground, grabbing the ankles of everyone around just so they’d stop. So they wouldn’t come near. So they’d stop the distant heat that I could still feel. Thick, thorny vines lifted from the ground, caging me, protecting me as I tried to figure out what to do. My eyes closed tight, trying to calm myself.
Through my heartbeat constantly pounding like a drum in my ears, I heard screams. I didn’t know if it was in my head or really happening.
“Harper,” Blythe’s voice shouted in the distance.
“What a freak,” said Ruby.
Christina agreed. “She doesn’t belong here.”
The doors burst open. Angry shouts barking orders filled the space around me. The fire receded. The vines started disintegrating from around the room.
I lifted to a stand right as the livid stare from Mr. Ares burned into me, looking like he saw straight to my very soul .
Without a word, he continued disintegrating the vines that I could now see took up most of the room from the floor to the ceiling. Then, worked on the vines that caged me in until I was free. My clothes left me in an embarrassing, dirty mess of water and fire magic.
Trevor stepped in beside Mr. Ares and started working on removing the earth magic alongside him before other students joined in to clean up the horrendous mess I made of the common room. Trevor’s brows pulled together when the vines wouldn’t disintegrate under his magic, so he switched to clearing up the water.
Shocked and disgusted looks met me from all around the room. Fury enveloped me as I stared at Christina, forcing myself to ignore the other confused and hateful glares. Everyone looked at me exactly how I’d feared they would.
Chancellor Lastrada strode in, taking inventory of the room when most of the magic was cleared up. Her head held high and her arms calmly rested before her. Her gaze settled on me with an instant look of disappointment, her lips pressed into a hard, thin line.
“Excellent cleanup, students. Do not pull something like this again. Earth magic takes control, not a lack of,” Lastrada stated.
Mr. Ares turned on her so fast I barely registered it before he raised his voice. “You allow this?”
“Young people getting control of their magic is what this school is for. We encourage those to fight their own battles unless a student’s life is in direct danger,” she said.
“You don’t think that was dangerous?” His dress shirt pulled tight as he gestured around the room, exasperated. His hair was just disheveled enough from the cleanup that the top of it, normally combed neatly back, brushed his cheekbone as he shook his head.
Ruby interjected, “We were just trying to encourage her magic, it was just a little. It wasn’t supposed to get out of control.”
He turned on her with a furious glare, and for a moment my breath caught seeing him so angered. Was he angry that this happened to me in the first place?
Lastrada nodded once at Ruby and turned back to the Basic Magic professor. “Collect yourself, Mr. Ares, and see this room is set back to normal.” She walked off without waiting for a response.
Mr. Ares stood at the entrance of the common room for a moment. I glared at him in confusion, still hurt and overwhelmed by what happened in here, as what I thought would have happened all along finally surfaced.
It caught me off guard as he looked at me with a lingering question in his eyes before his eyes scanned over me.
I definitely wasn’t going to stay inside here and listen to murmurs about me through my dorm door all day. I marched out, not looking back, not apologizing, only turning my head to see Blythe’s saddened stare before I walked out.
No one followed me, which was a relief. Getting outside and finally feeling a shred of light on my skin was like being able to breathe again. I couldn’t stay in there with the murmurs that I knew were about my freakout.
My hands still shook in shock of what I let happen. I’d seen magic being used so openly, but it was hard to let it free after suppressing it for so long. When it finally came out, I didn’t know what came over me. Heightened by my fear, I just let it do what it wanted. It felt like such a blur, I barely knew what was happening until standing and seeing the true devastation caused in the room.
If it weren’t for my grades, along with a letter I wrote about my situation when signing up and the paid tuition, I wouldn’t be here. They all had better control and better knowledge of this world, it was obvious.
I swallowed. It didn’t feel like I could do this. The thought of telling my uncle that I tried and wasn’t ready was daunting. I’d have to tell him I’d look for a place next to him and try another time at the academy. This was too much, too overwhelming.
Those stares, and the panic that caused me to lose control, were too much.
Christina looked at me like the freak she called me, but also with a hint of fear. I balled my shaking fingers. I hoped if anything came from this situation it was that she wouldn’t try something like that again. Now that my magic had a taste of freedom, being used to protect me, it was humming at my fingertips. Though, now it was hard to tell if it was the adrenaline, because I felt more scared than ever about losing control again. At least, unlike the Unenchanted, using magic here wouldn’t be illegal. I hated how easily being frightened could make me lose control .
After marching mindlessly, just walking to avoid stares, I found myself outside of the towering building of classrooms. The tall, paneled windows looked out to the field I entered.
After everything, I wasn’t sure I was still in the mood for magic practice, even more so if I wasn’t staying. My arms crossed over my sweater and I walked across the grassy field to the back, avoiding everyone as much as possible, trying to calm my nerves.
Students practicing together sounded at the other end of the field. My boots pressed into the damp grass as I just kept walking. Sounds of sparrows reacting to the brighter day could be heard within the trees toward the end of the field.
My magic still vibrated within me as flashes of the fire around me mixed with ones from my nightmares. Stopping at the back corner, a small garden of hosta shrubs grew in a patch, slightly shaded by draping willow trees. Strangling weeds were killing the base of the tree in front of my boots. Something pulled within me, remembering just a week ago, being home, being with my uncle. Using small bits of magic within his greenhouse.
I knelt down, my shaking knees sank into the mud. My clothes were already a disaster. Before I could think about it, just between me and the plants, in front of the fence, dark shadows fell from my hand. They wrapped around my fingers as they did before, destroying the weeds to the tree that would otherwise not have continued to grow.
I didn’t think of anything else, just the comforting feeling of being in my spacious attic, tending to dying plants we would bring home. It was familiar, comforting as I drew it out, that little bit of control I desperately needed to claim right now.
Standing, I admired my work. Guilt about my thoughts about leaving started to pull at me. Maybe it would thrive and become a piece of me left here that no one knew about. Something like one of the pieces of my parents left here.
I never felt bad about using the illegal shadow magic, even if it was claimed as dark magic. It seemed to help. It was easier for me to control than light or fire magic. It never made sense to me why it was outlawed, though maybe some people really did let it out of control. To me, it felt right, like earth magic.
I turned on my heel, ready to head back to the main campus, feeling only slightly more ready to face what happened in the dorms. As soon as I turned, endless green eyes were staring at me from only ten feet away.
Mr. Ares took slow steps forward, nothing revealing on his face of what he was thinking. He cocked one contrasting dark eyebrow. “Shadow magic, Ms. Solace?”
While everything about him showed a sort of nonchalance, a presence emanated from him like he knew he didn’t need this place but wanted to be here. It was his gaze branding into me that was the only indication that what was running through his head was dangerous.
My body immediately stiffened and I pulled my lip into my mouth. Shit.
Well, it wasn’t like I really ever saw myself graduating from here.
Silence stretched between us. He stared at me with a hard look, his jaw clenched as he walked over to me .
My hands stayed at my sides as he approached to stand before me, assessing me before looking at the tree.
“A plant is hardly worth risking your magic over,” he said in a low voice.
I still kept my mouth shut. He must have thought I wasn’t aware of just how bad it could be. I wasn’t going to explain to him that I found it easier to control than other magic when I came into my power, it was only earth, water, and shadow I ever wanted to call upon. Fire would always get out of control for me, risking the Unenchanted to get involved, which would have gotten my magic taken, or the last of my uncle’s magic. He didn’t have enough to contain it, so I never wanted to do it again after every time it nearly got out of control.
He went on, annoyed this time. “It takes one offense. Don’t give them any reason to strip it from you. You’re incredibly lucky it was me who found you. Head back to your dormitory.”
I imagined I looked braindead with the shocked look that had me stunned. He wasn’t going to say anything. He didn’t look mad, intense maybe, but that look of hatred was gone. It didn’t match the disgust or anger Christina and some other students held.
After my release of shadow magic, getting to step away and clear my head, my panic felt calmer. Mr. Ares’ unfazed reaction after he had been the one to clean most of my mess, it felt like a slip-up, and maybe that was all it was. The thoughts of leaving still stayed at the front of my mind, but truthfully, calling my uncle to give up so soon after seeing my parents in the library made me feel sick .
I nodded and started heading back across the field.
“Oh, and Ms. Solace.”
My steps halted.
“Next time I catch you using illegal magic, I won’t be so lenient. Don’t mistake this for a courtesy, I don’t feel like doing the paperwork for catching you this time .”