I was coming back from hockey practice one Friday afternoon when I saw her again. She’d been avoiding me since the last incident with the giant spider. She was sitting on the lawn of the school, surrounded by textbooks and looking puzzled.
Despite myself, I gravitated toward her. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as I dropped my hockey gear and sat down beside her. I noticed she was wearing a big-knit sweater, along with black leggings and light pink leg warmers.
I was really into leg warmers. And socks. Ilovedknee-length socks on girls. Couldn’t tell you why. Yeah, I had a sock-fetish. Wasn’t afraid to admit it, either.
“I didn’t say I was ready to talk to you,” Emma said. She turned a page idly and tried to ignore me.
“I didn’t think you were, but here I am anyway.” I leaned back and smirked. “You looked like you needed some help.”
“Not from you.” She gave me the finger. I laughed.
“Come on. What’s troubling you?” I asked.
She made a face. “I’ve been here for nearly a month now, but I still don’t understand this world. Nobody’s told me the basics. I’m expected to know everything about the Arcanea, but I barely know why spells work in the first place.”
“Well, there’s your problem. You can’t master magic if you don’t know what it is,” I said.
She gave me a sour look. “I supposeyoucould teach me?”
“Of course.” I put my elbows on my crossed legs. “There are multiple branches of Arcanean magic,” I explained to her. “Illusion is obviously the first, and the most important. Sorceresses are gifted at illusion. Companions are as well, but they aren’t half as powerful as Marked. The second is shifting— only Companions can change into animals. The third is enchanting— infusing objects with special charms that change its composition for a certain purpose. The fourth is alchemy, which almost every magical race can do, so it’s nothing special.”
I rolled my shoulders, to stretch them. “The fifth skill depends on your Faction as an Arcanea. Alicorns have shield magic, which means they’re better at protection spells and can cast shields to defend themselves and each other. Dragons have battle magic— they can create magical bombs, or use their powers much like weapons.”
“Wow,” Emma said. “That’s intense.”
“Isn’t it? But I think griffins have the worst of it.” I kicked my leg out. “They’re empaths. They can feel the emotions of others. Which is useful in battle, because you can predict what your enemy is going to do, or if someone is being dishonest with you, but they can never turn their magic off. They’re constantly feeling multiple emotions all the time. Their own, and others.”
“Is that why Kiara is so quiet? Because she’s trying to handle everyone’s emotions?” Emma asked.
“Probably,” I said. “Griffins are easily upset. They just can’t help it. They process everyone’s feelings in the room all at once, if they don’t learn how to block it out. They have to be specially trained so they don’t go insane with experiencing everyone’s feelings.”
“What can we do?” Emma asked.
“Telepathy,” I responded. “All wolvens, male and female, can cast their thoughts extremely far to mentally speak to each other. Although all Companions can speak mentally, only wolvens can speak to other Arcanea over long distances. We’re talking up to fifty miles, sometimes more. The female wolven have extra abilities, though. They can levitate objects with their mind. Someday you’ll be able to do that, too.”
“Lady Korva talked about that briefly in my illusion class, but didn’t go into it much, so I didn’t understand what it was,” Emma said.
“That’s because they want to start you with the basics. You’re just a First Year. They won’t get into the magic of different Factions until your second semester,” I told her.
She nodded. “Makes sense. But I still feel like there’s more to it. Something the school doesn’t teach. I’ve heard people… I don’t know, whispering about it in the hallways. Like it’s something forbidden.”
“If you want to get technical, there’s a sixth branch,” I say. “Dark magic. It’s what the Black Claw uses. Its drawing power from living creatures, or from the dead, to make yourself stronger. If you called it by a specific name, it’d be known asshadow manipulation.The Black Claw can make themselves appear as shadows, and usually, you don’t see them coming until it’s too late.”
“Holy shit. That’s horrible.” Emma cupped a hand over her mouth.
“It’s pretty bad,” I confessed. “I’ve stumbled upon… ceremony sites where the Black Claw have performed their sacrifices, and they never look good.”
Emma seemed conflicted. “In class, we were told that wands and crystals were objects of dark magic, and we should never use them. But I’ve seen someone I know wear one around their neck.”
Emma didn’t trust me with that information. She was protecting someone. But who? “Wands and crystals aren’t necessarily bad. They’ve just been used as tools by members of the Black Claw for so long, people see them that way,” I explained. “They’ve been used before to store life energy from sacrifices, but they can hold good magic, too. But I’d tell your friend to keep that crystal pretty close, unless she wants to cause trouble for herself.”
“She’s pretty careful. Plus she’s got me. I’ll kick anyone’s ass who tries to mess with her,” Emma vowed.
I smiled. She was brave, and she defended her friends. I liked that about her.
She tapped a pencil against her chin. “One thing I don’t get is how we’re able to do all of this. I know we’re descended from faeries from a different world, but there has to be a scientific explanation behind it all.”
“The faeries we’re descended from had extraordinary power, rumored to be gifted to them to the gods themselves,” I said. “If you look at our cells under a microscope, they can shift and influence the environment to create hallucinations on the mind, so that we can perform illusions.”
