“Is there an expiration date to this?” she asked as they descended. “How long do you intend to force me to work for you?”
“A few years should be sufficient,” he muttered.
Years. She’d clung to the hope that this arrangement would last no more than a few months, for surely he didn’t want to remain here long while receiving no income and draining his savings. Years—with no guarantee that he would actually let her go after that.
“First lesson about magic use: Without fuel, you’re powerless,” he said, not quite looking her in the eye. “So fill your pockets. Please.”
She put leaves in her hip pockets and the two directly below.
“Show me your spellcasting stance, if you would.”
She straightened her spine and held out her right arm.
“You need to lock your elbow. You’re a conduit—you want magic to flow out of you without unnecessary pit stops. You should lock your knees, too, and tuck your hips, assuming you’re not already doing that.”
Thanks to her coat and dress, it was impossible for him to tell. She made those adjustments and raised an eyebrow.
“The positioning of your hand changes with the type of spell,” he said, pacing in a way that reminded her eerily of Lydia when perturbed. “If you’re acting upon an object, you want to aim your palm at it. Brewing ingredients sitting on the table below you, palm down; lamp hanging from the ceiling not working, palm up. Otherwise, aim it sideways—like shaking hands with the universe, except for the leaf you have to hold between your thumb and forefinger.”
A recitation of the instructions he received at age thirteen, no doubt.
“Your hand needs to be just as rigid as your arm,” he added. “The trick is to extend the fingers not holding the leaf. All right?”
She nodded.
“Good. There’s a five-pound weight,” he said, gesturing behind him. “Try to levitate it, if you please.”
“With what spellword?”
“The same one you used yesterday.”
So he’d seen that, too. The thought of how meticulously he’d arranged things to box her into this position made her want so much to hurt him, she tasted pomegranate.
Awful,awfulfruit.
He cleared his throat.“Ahebban—lift. Be sure to say it clearly and firmly without raising your voice to the point of yelling. And concentrate on the weight, or you run the risk of levitating everything in sight. Intention is a critical part of casting.”
She concentrated on breathing instead, trying to tamp down anger and suppress an embarrassing feeling of inadequacy. She didn’t want to cast magic in front of him. Even setting aside the performing-monkey aspect of the situation, she cringed at the thought of failing as he watched.
But what she wanted had nothing to do with it. She plucked a leaf from a full pocket, extended her right arm, tucked her hips, locked her knees and elbows, turned her hand palm down, flexed her free fingers and fixated on the weight.“Ahebban!”
The satisfyingzipof magic traveled up her spine and down her arm. First try. She was elated—until the object of her spell stopped well short of the height she’d achieved the day before.
“About a foot.” Blackwell cast a spell of his own and the weight lowered itself to the floor. “You can do better. Try again, if you would.”
A foot—one-twentieth of what he could do at thirteen. Humiliating. She re-contorted herself and called out the spellword again, more demand than request this time.
“Eighteen inches,” he estimated.
In more than a dozen additional attempts, she only once needed to repeat herself to get the spell to take. But she couldn’t levitate the weight above two feet. All her muscles ached with the effort, as if she’d been lifting it the normal way.
“Do you think the telephone directory weighs less than five pounds?” she said, trying to catch her breath.
“A bit more. I checked this morning,” he added by way of explanation.
“Why can’t I reproduce the results I got yesterday?”
“Well—you’ll never be the same as you were then.”
