FIFTEEN #2
Silas retrieved it, turning it over to reveal a symbol. Twin blades crossed over one another, a half circle encasing them both, cradling them together. His breath caught. “Winslow.”
She took the paper, eyes scanning the symbol before she looked up and whispered, “do you recognise this?”
“No,” he said, staring at it, “but it looks an awful lot like—”
“Our blades,” she finished.
Silas folded the paper, slipping it into his coat pocket. “It seems someone other than us are aware of their existence.”
They looked once more at the wreckage of Fabian’s store. His heart turned over, wondering what happened to the odd mage. His eyes strayed to the protective glyph on the floor. Next to it was a scorch mark on the weathered floorboards that ended in a burn-mark in the shape of a hand.
Nothing about the situation was clear, except perhaps one thing.
Fabian hadn’t run.
He’d fought.
And lost.
That afternoon, Amelia leaned against the bookshelves, arms crossed, watching Silas pace before his blackboard, brow furrowed in thought. His fingers twitched occasionally at his sides, like his hands were reaching for something invisible.
He had a renewed surge of determination in the wake of finding Fabian’s shop ravaged. Especially after alerting the authorities, and having it called a ‘ low priority threat ’.
It all zinged through him, rising and falling like the tides, making him antsy and frustrated.
“You’re doing it again,” she said from behind him.
He ceased his pacing, turning to her. “Doing what?”
“That thing with your hands.” She lifted her own fingers and wiggled them mockingly. “You’ve been doing it all afternoon.”
He scowled, rubbing his palms on his shirt. “I’m not,” Silas said, and when she raised a brow at him, he sighed. “Fine, perhaps I am. It just…feels like something’s there. Under my skin. It’s making me twitchy.”
Amelia tilted her head. “Do you think it’s the magic?”
Silas pondered that. “I can’t think of another explanation. Yesterday, I reached for my pencil, and it moved. Just a fraction. But it did.”
She looked at him, disbelieving. “That could’ve been coincidence, a draft or something.”
“Or it wasn’t.”
Amelia looked to the faint scar along her palm. The matching one on Silas’ hand had healed into a fine white line. Too small to hold the weight of what it had done to them.
“You want to test it,” she guessed.
“Don’t you want to? If we’ve been altered by what happened, if we’ve somehow…developed a connection to magic, we need to know what that means. What we can do.”
She hesitated. “What if it’s dangerous?”
He smiled faintly. “It’s magic , Winslow. Of course it’s dangerous.”
She didn’t smile back. “I’m serious. What if we trigger something we can’t control?”
“Then we stop. But we won’t know our limits unless we try.”
Amelia studied him, her face uncertain. Finally, she nodded. “Alright. But we start small.”
Silas exhaled, relieved that she had agreed. “Small. Got it.”
They mapped out an experiment before starting, agreeing the easiest beginning point was simply trying to move an object.
Silas stood near the centre of the room, brow furrowed in concentration, eyeing a small glass sphere placed carefully on a stool.
“This is ridiculous,” Amelia muttered, arms crossed and leaning against the chalkboard. “We don’t even know how this is supposed to work.”
“Instinct,” Silas replied. “It’s how mages learn. They feel it, then they shape it.”
She scoffed. “Except we aren’t mages.”
“We weren’t.” Silas sent her a smirk. “We kind of are now.”
He lifted his hand, fingers outstretched towards the sphere. Brow knitted with deep concentration, he tried to harness the restless energy writhing beneath his skin. Nothing happened.
Amelia sighed. “Should I start drafting your apology for how dumb this is?”
He ignored her, focusing intently.
The air shifted slightly with a strange hum, like the room inhaled for just a second.
The sphere trembled slightly for the barest moment before it stilled.
Silas’ eyes widened, heart rate spiking with exhilaration. “You see that?”
Amelia pushed off the chalkboard, a frown on her face, walking to him. “Go again.”
This time the hum was stronger, like a bow brushing against the string of a cello. The glass sphere slid forwards a few inches with a soft clink .
Silas laughed breathlessly, triumph soaring through him.
Amelia blinked. “How did you…?”
“I don’t know, I just…reached.”
Eyes narrowed on the sphere, Amelia rubbed her hands together. “Alright. Let me try.”
He stepped back. “Don’t force it. Just reach out. Feel the energy.”
Amelia nodded, hand rising. She reached out, face creased with concentration, lips pursing.
The sphere remained still.
She tried again, and again. But nothing happened.
Her hand dropped. “It’s not working.”
Silas’ triumph faded with her mounting frustration, which he felt like a weight on his own chest. “Maybe it’s latent. Yours might behave differently.”
“Because I’m not like you?” she said with quiet frustration. “Because I’m lesser than you?”
“You’re not less,” Silas said firmly, “just different.”
She looked at him, expression flat. “You really believe that?”
Silas shrugged. “Of course. You should, too.”
They stood silently side by side, the sphere gleaming under the lab’s light. Amelia clenched her jaw, turning away.
“It’s late, and it’s already been a long day. Try again tomorrow,” Silas offered gently.
She didn’t answer, already moving for the door.
As part of their lab time over the next few days, they incorporated hours into understanding and reaching out to their magic. Silas enjoyed it immensely, while Amelia wrinkled her nose and seemed to despise the whole of it.
Silas felt his lab begun to feel more like a forge than a place of study. Heat shimmered in the air not from fire, but from the magic. His magic.
He stood, palm extended, towards a row of brass instruments lined up. Beakers, flasks, weights. With a flick of his fingers and a quiet command of will, one shuddered, then floated into the air with slow, deliberate grace.
He grinned.
It was happening faster now. Easier. Every time he tried, the power responded more willingly, twisting beneath his skin like something alive, something waiting. It sang to him.
The way the air trembled with his focus, the thrill of shaping the world without ever touching it. It was like nothing else. Euphoria curled hot and wild through his chest.
He turned, breathless. “Did you see that?”
Across the worktable, Amelia stood with her hands on her hips, brow furrowed in something between admiration and frustration.
“I saw it,” she said, tone clipped. “Go again.”
He obliged. This time lifting two objects, a small clamp, and a strip of leather. They hovered, suspended mid-air like dancers waiting for their cue.
Silas’ mouth curled. “I’m getting better.”
“You’re getting cocky ,” she replied, her voice lighter than before. “It’s unsettling.”
He laughed, letting the objects drift back down. “I can’t help it. It’s like…like something inside me is waking, and it doesn’t want to stop.”
He looked at his hand. It wasn’t visible, but he felt it…a faint shimmer beneath the skin, like veins of light threading through his fingers. “It feels good , Winslow. Like I’m supposed to be doing this.”
She said nothing.
He glanced at her, seeing the tension in her jaw, the shift in her stance.
Her cut hand was clenched.
“Winslow—”
“I am trying,” she snapped before he could finish. “I’ve been trying. For days.”
He softened. “I know. I’m not…I’m not comparing.”
She looked away, jaw tight.
He gestured to the brass weight on the table. “Try again. Just that one. Just…reach for it, descend into yourself the way we’ve been talking about.”
She didn’t move, hesitating.
Then slowly, she lifted her hand, her other flattening against the worktable.
He watched Amelia focus, lips pressing together, a faint tremble to her fingers. It was the same look of concentration he had witnessed on her face so many times, the same look she’d had that first day in the library, absorbed in her book.
The weight remained, steadfast and immovable.
Her hand dropped.
She didn’t look angry or frustrated, simply resigned.
Silas surveyed the droop in her shoulders, the way her dark eyes blinked slowly at the brass weight like she had failed. He couldn’t stand it.
He stepped around the table until he was next to her.
Amelia tapped distractedly on the table with a sigh, eyes on the weight, contemplating.
He made to reach for her hand, to calm her, to help her. Momentarily undecided, Silas stilled. Exhaling roughly, he shook his head at himself, tired of second-guessing every move with Amelia.
Silas shifted, standing directly behind her, his hand drifting to lay across hers. Amelia stiffened as his chest pressed into her back, his arm flush with hers, his fingers stilling the anxious tapping.
His pulse rose. They had never been this close without the magic forcing them to be. Silas waited for her to shy away, to snap at him to move.
Instead, Amelia’s chest rose with a deep breath before whispering, “what are you doing?”
What am I doing?
He tightened his hold on her hand, lifting it so her palm faced the weight again. Silas leaned down to her ear. “Helping,” he murmured.
Her breath caught, head turning faintly towards him, so his mouth hovered by the edge of her jaw, making his heart jump.
Silas swallowed, brain refusing to focus with her so close. He could move a fraction, press his lips to her soft skin, taste her. His fingers could take the underside of her jaw and turn her head just a touch more, and her mouth would be there…
“Okay,” Amelia breathed, cutting through his thoughts.