Chapter 42
Teacher
Hannah and King Tristan did not come to dinner that evening. Evelyn sat between Leo and Damien. The lords of the four courts had also joined them.
It’s the night of my engagement and I don’t have any family in this room. Rory is the only other person from Carrowmore. I wish Rowan were here.
“Damien, do you know if my brother is coming to the wedding?” Evelyn asked.
Compassion filled his eyes, which was answer enough. “Your father sent word to Rowan but asked him to stay home. He doesn’t want to take any risks with the prince traveling or leaving the castle unattended.”
“It wouldn’t be unattended! There’s a whole army to protect the castle!”
“I think the recent deaths of two kings are the bigger issues.”
But I miss my brother.
“We should invite Rowan here once your father returns to Carrowmore,” Leo suggested in a blatant attempt to make Evelyn feel better.
She nodded and pushed food around her plate.
“My sisters will be here for the wedding,” Damien said.
“Daphne and Desirée, right?” Evelyn confirmed.
Damien smiled warmly at her. “Yes. They haven’t stopped talking about the ball, so I’m sure a royal wedding will be the highlight of the century.”
“No pressure.”
“Although,”—Damien gave Leo a pointed look—“I’m not sure Desirée ever got over her crush on you.”
“What happened?” Evelyn asked.
The tips of Leo’s ears went pink. “Absolutely nothing. It was so long ago, and she was a teenager at the time.”
“Well, what girl can resist a rebellious prince?” Evelyn winked.
“Desirée was hardly ever at the palace, so I don’t know what she was thinking.”
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Your Majesty,” Damien joked. “Especially when she had enough time between visits to forget how ugly you are.”
Leo ignored him and spoke to Evelyn. “I only ever saw her as Damien’s baby sister. Which is fortunate because if I had tried anything, I’m sure Damien—”
“Would have removed all of your fingernails and at least one tooth,” Damien casually interrupted.
“Exactly.”
“Who is Damien threatening now?” Nicolas asked, distracted away from his conversation with Lord Robert.
“The king,” Evelyn answered.
“Ah. Carry on.”
“So much for the lords pledging their loyalty,” Leo grumbled.
After dinner, Leo pulled Evelyn aside. She missed touching him, even in little ways like holding his hand. Based on how Leo kept running his fingers through her curls, Evelyn assumed he missed her, too.
“Can I take you somewhere?” he asked. “The beach or the city or the river… anywhere.”
“I can’t right now. Moeller asked to meet with me. I think he has some questions for his investigation.”
Thank the gods Ritter didn’t wish for me to only speak the truth.
No… I shouldn’t be thankful that I can’t lie. I just shouldn’t lie. Dammit.
Leo frowned. “I asked him not to bother you with any of that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want him to upset you. Everything you’ve seen this week is bad enough without discussing it over and over.”
Evelyn winced. “I haven’t really processed any of it. Everything happened so fast. Sometimes I think I just arrived and sometimes it feels like I’ve been here for years.”
Leo lifted her chin. “I know we are moving really fast. You’ve only been here for eleven days. But I felt like I knew you after eleven minutes.”
Oh, Leo… there’s a lot you missed in those eleven days. A lot that I am not going to tell you about.
Evelyn returned to Moeller’s temporary office and drummed her fingers on the back of an armchair until he looked up from his desk.
“Show me what you can already do,” he said.
“Nice to see you too, Councilor.”
Moeller had no reaction to her sass. He simply waited.
Evelyn stood up straight and put her palms together. Feeling awkward under his scrutiny, she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing and heartbeat. Light slowly started—
“You’re doing it wrong.”
Evelyn’s eyes snapped open and she lost the little light she’d created.
“Where are you conjuring magic from?” Moeller asked impatiently.
“My… spirit?”
He looked nauseated. “Why?”
“That’s what the book said to do!”
“What book?”
“Channeling Energy Magic.”
“And what nonsense did Engelbert manage to publish?”
“The book said to calm your body and then feel your heartbeat to access your life force so you can draw magic from your spirit.”
Moeller stared at her for a good ten seconds before saying, “That’s disgusting.”
“Well, it works!”
“No, it doesn’t. You are wasting all your effort for the smallest effect.”
“So how am I supposed to access Energy magic?”
“You don’t access it. You use it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Evelyn whined.
Moeller walked around the desk to stand in front of her. “Do you have to take deep breaths and feel your heartbeat before you use Fire magic?”
“No. I can just do it.”
“Energy magic isn’t any different. But you are so used to Fire magic that switching to Energy will feel like writing with your non-dominant hand.”
“Why didn’t the book say that?”
“The book is for people with no experience or understanding of magic. It has the added benefit of not allowing those people to become powerful enough to do any damage.”
“Why didn’t—” Evelyn’s voice cut out and she dropped her gaze.
Moeller raised a brow. “Why didn’t Ritter explain any of this to you?
I’m sure he enjoyed making a young princess feel special.
The ball of light is impressive when you don’t know any better.
Ritter got you excited about something new without giving you any actual power.
” His tone was firm but laced with sympathy.
A lecture without judgment. “Do you want a parlor trick, or do you want power?”
Evelyn smirked, accepting the challenge. “Power.”
“Good. Now pay attention.”
A table in the corner was covered with a half-dozen potted plants that hadn’t been there earlier.
Moeller retrieved one of them, a peace lily with bright green leaves, and set it on his desk.
As his fingers curled into a loose fist, the plant withered.
The leaves drooped and lost their vibrant hue.
When he stretched his fingers out, the plant revived itself and added white blossoms.
Evelyn stared, dumbfounded, at the plant. “How did you do that?”
“As easily as you could set it on fire. Sit down.”
She obeyed. Moeller used a pair of scissors to snip a single leaf off the plant. He set the leaf on the edge of the desk in front of her.
“Think about the magic you would use to lift the leaf into your hand,” he said. “Except you don’t want the actual leaf, but the Energy it contains.”
Evelyn lifted a hand with her palm facing up, as if the leaf would jump onto it.
“Don’t worry about doing any damage to the leaf,” Moeller added. “Unless you use Fire, nothing you do will hurt it.”
She hadn’t even realized that concern was in the back of her mind.
It’s only a leaf. There’s nothing I can mess up here.
“If I had a candle on the table, you would be able to sense the heat and air disturbance of the flame. Did you feel anything when you practiced making light?” Moeller asked.
“Yes,” Evelyn replied. “It was like… fizzing. Bubbles rushing to the surface.”
“Pick up the leaf and close your eyes.”
She did as she was told and held the leaf in her open palm.
“Focus until you feel something. It will be faint, but it’s there.”
It was like trying to pick out one particular voice in a room full of people. Even in a quiet space, there were a lot of little distractions. But after a few minutes, she felt it.
Her eyes popped open. “It’s like… sea foam.”
Moeller grinned approvingly. “Set the leaf down but keep track of the feeling.”
Evelyn put the leaf back on the table. She could still sense it at a distance, like not being able to ignore the sound of a clock ticking once you noticed it.
“What you described as sea foam is the Energy,” Moeller explained. “Bring it toward you.”
It was easier than Evelyn expected. Like he said, it was similar to using Fire magic. The bubbling sensation moved from the leaf, through the air, and into her fingers. The leaf shriveled and turned brown.
“What do I do now?” she asked.
“If you don’t do anything, your body will absorb the Energy. But I want you to try pushing it back into the leaf. Do what you just did, but in the opposite direction.”
Evelyn held her hand over the leaf, worried she wouldn’t be able to control her aim. She opened her hand as if to drop something. The Energy drifted out of her fingers and settled in the leaf, which turned smooth and green once more.
“Do it again,” Moeller ordered.
She repeated the process of luring Energy out of the leaf and then giving it back. “I thought this would be harder.”
“Well, it’s only a leaf,” Moeller said dryly. “But yes, the hard part is building your awareness of Energy so you can use it. Most people can’t do that at all.”
“You asked what I felt from it. Do you feel something different?”
“It’s more of a low humming noise for me, not a physical thing. Your magic is apparently more tactile, probably from your Elemental background.” He replaced the leaf with the whole potted plant. “Now try it with this.”
Evelyn concentrated on removing Energy from the larger plant. She felt significantly more of the bubbling sensation, which moved all the way down to her wrist instead of staying in her fingers.
“You’ll get used to it,” Moeller said. “Imagine what it would feel like to take Energy from a tree or a person.”
“There’s something I still don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
“I see how I’m taking Energy from the plant and then feeding it back. But what about when I make the ball of light? That’s Energy, but where is it coming from?”
“To make the light, you pull Energy out of yourself instead of something separate like a plant. It can be a valuable thing to know how to do, especially in an emergency. But it can also drain your magic if you take too much.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“Helping or hurting someone, depending on which side you’re on.”
“So it can be dangerous?”
“Absolutely. Make a ball of light now. From your body’s Energy, not your soul. You need to burn that book Ritter gave you. Feel for the bubbling.”
Evelyn closed her eyes. She felt between her shoulder blades, where her Fire magic was stored, but didn’t sense anything new.
After a minute, she found a tingling sensation in her lower back along her spine.
Her mind tugged on that and forced it upward.
A ball of light appeared above her outstretched palm.
“Good!” Moeller said. “Hold onto it but look at the plant.”
Her gaze shifted while she balanced the flow of Energy through her arm.
“You need to pretend that this plant has wronged you somehow,” Moeller continued. “Maybe its leaves are poisonous and killed everyone at dinner. It doesn’t matter. Your goal is to hurt the plant. Throw the light at it with the intention to cause harm.”
Evelyn pictured the four dead soldiers tied up in the empty shop.
She flung the light at the plant, pretending it was the person who hurt them.
The whole thing turned so dark it was nearly black, and the pot cracked along one side.
The stems split in two, leaves crumpled or fell off entirely, and no part of it could hold itself up anymore.
“What happened?” she gasped.
“Your magic tore through the plant’s Energy like pests eating their way through a garden. I don’t recommend trying it on a person.”
Evelyn paled. “Can I fix it?”
“That one? No. You hit it too hard to mend it now.”
Moeller replaced the destroyed plant with a healthy one and used magic to wither it slightly. “Gather your Energy but change your intent. You want to save this one, not hurt it.”
Evelyn reformed the ball of light. She urged it toward the sickly plant, which immediately perked up.
“You are good at this,” Moeller said.
Evelyn smiled. “Did you just give me a compliment?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You can turn leaves brown.”
“But that’s a good start, right?”
“It is. You need to keep practicing until it feels as natural as Fire.”
She eyed the rest of the flowers. “Can I take one of the plants with me?”
“Yes, but practice with more than that.”
“Are you giving me permission to destroy the royal garden?”
“It’s not my garden and I leave tomorrow. Do what you want.”
“Why are you leaving?”
Moeller sat behind his desk. “I am no longer helpful in Gryon. Whoever is responsible for so many lives lost here is quite successful at covering their tracks. I will be more useful in Lochmatten with Wendell to help me research. Also, your wedding festivities do not interest me.”
I’m still not convinced I like Moeller, but he is a good teacher.
Was Haydn intentionally limiting what I could do with my magic? Or was he having me start small?
More importantly, how am I going to tell Leo about my magic when I don’t even understand why I have it?