Damn, she had noticed that? His cheeks grew warm. “That was a basic physical ward, the most instinctive use of my magic. It was only visible because I hadn’t consciously decided to cast it. When I concentrate, I can make any ward invisible.”
Her eyes went wide. “You used magic unintentionally?”
He rolled his eyes. “I know witches are taught the importance of control as young as possible, but we all give into instinct occasionally. Or are you going to claim that you’ve never used your magic by accident?” He scoffed. “Never mind, you’ll claim you don’t have magic at all.”
To his surprise, she didn’t protest his assertion that she was a witch. Her dark eyes were wide, her lips parted slightly. “Proper magic has to be called up by the witch; it doesn’t just happen on accident.”
“What idiot told you that? Using our elemental affinities takes concentration and practice, but the power that makes us witches? That is as instinctive as breathing. If I didn’t consciously choose not to, I’d walk around wrapped in a physical ward all day every day.”
It was the first lesson every witch was taught: how not to use their power. Nicholas had cast wards whenever he was startled or uncomfortable for years before getting a handle on the instinct. Although, he’d never unconsciously cast a ward to prevent interruptions while kissing a woman before. Not an instinct he regretted, though he had been the one to pull back. A rogue bat at that point would not have been pleasant.
Sadie looked like he had just said something groundbreaking, though. He set the pawn back on the board, thefelt on the underside of the wood muffling the sound as it made contact. “Sadie, what is your pow—”
“Chess,” she interrupted. “You were going to teach me how to play chess.”
If he pushed, she’d leave. So, he wouldn’t push. He’d watch and listen. If she thought “proper magic” could be easily controlled, then he had no doubt that she considered her own power “improper.” And uncontrolled magic couldn’t hide forever.
He picked up a different piece. “This is the king. The goal of the game is to capture your opponent’s king before they get yours.”
Seventeen
???
Sadie wasn’t sureshe actually understood any of the rules of chess by the time they started a game. It had nothing to do with the complexity or Nicholas’s ability to teach. She simply couldn’t concentrate on anything beyond the fact that, according to Nicholas, all witches had to learn hownotto use their power.
Sadie’s family—everyone in her home village—had told her that her power was aberrant. That she needed to use the charms her grandmother made because it was the only way to respect people’s privacy. That if she had normal magic, things would be different. Better.
Instead of teaching her to control her power, her family had forced her to suppress it. And she had gladly used the charms, excited when her grandmother found a new glyph that worked even better, because she thought it was the only way to quiet the thoughts of those around her.
How different would her life have been if she could control her telepathy?
Could she have sat through supper tonight and not been overwhelmed? Able to push away the thoughts bombarding her with an effort of will?
“Diagonals,” Nicholas reminded her when she picked up a piece and hesitated before moving it.
She chose a spot and set the carved ebony down, then slowly drew back her hand, her fingers curling inward. “Are we still warded against eavesdropping?” she blurted.
Nicholas picked up one of his own pieces and captured the one she had just placed. “Yes.”
“How do you learn control?” she asked in a rush, the words tumbling over each other before she could regret saying them at all.
“Practice. Lots and lots of practice.”
“That tells me nothing!”
“It depends on your power.”
“I’m not telling you that.” It was bad enough that she had tacitly admitted to having one.
“Then I can’t really offer specific help. But in general, the first step is to get comfortable using your magic. Only then can you get a feel for how not to use it. So when my power manifested, I spent hours and hours crafting wards. I learned how to change their color, to make some block physical objects, others sound, others light. Eventually manipulating the power led to understanding how not to call on it.”
“So you walked around surrounded by wards until then?” Sadie didn’t believe it for a minute. She’d have noticed if all witches went through a phase like that as they learned their powers.
“Not constantly. Like I said before, the power is instinctive, and my instincts didn’t always call for protections. Plus, wards are stationary, so I couldn’t move if I had one around myself. I slept with a ward around my bed every night for months, though.”
“And you learned to not use your power by first getting comfortable using it.”
“Exactly.”
