Fallen Magic

Between that warning and my inevitable failure to study before nine, I’m not looking forward to Spells.

Hannah, Aisha and I arrive precisely on time. The classroom seems surprisingly ordinary: I don’t recognise the charts or diagrams on the walls, but the room is laid out in the standard fashion, desks that seat two in neat rows and a blackboard at the front beside which our teacher stands, facing away from us so all I can see is that she’s a small woman with hair turning from dirty blonde to grey.

There are ten desks, and about half are occupied by one or two students. Hannah and Aisha peel away from me as we walk in to claim a centrally-positioned desk, while I stand awkwardly for a second until Edward catches my eye. He’s sitting alone at the front, giving me a small wave.

I wave back and cross the classroom to sit next to him, then begin methodically removing my things from my satchel: parchment, quill, ruler, each in its proper place. I don’t quite know whether I should ask about whatever idea he had earlier. Instead I look around at my classmates.

There are about fifteen of us, equally split between boys and girls. Most are about my age, though there’s one woman who looks maybe twenty sitting alone at the back. I can’t help noticing one of the boys has the cutest curly blond hair.

They’re all staring at us, some more obviously than others. I guess the new students must stand out a little.

The teacher turns around and claps her hands together. She’s wearing a floaty pale blue dress which any Genford girl would have got detention for (well, possibly not a few who either sucked up to the teachers or had richer families than most there, but that’s beside the point) and there’s something subtly wrong with her face in a way I can’t quite pin down.

“Cosmetic enchantments,” says Edward in a low voice. “And not the best kind.”

“Well, hello, everyone!” she says cheerfully. “You’ll have noticed we’ve got new students with us today. I – “ she gestures to herself with one hand – “am the Honourable Felicity Thomas-Richards, though you may of course call me Felicity.”

I shouldn’t judge people too quickly, but I hate her already.

“And we are joined by Edward – “

“Please don’t – “

“Blackthorn,” Felicity finishes, heedless of Edward’s interruption.

She loses control of the class immediately. Half of them don’t even bother to be subtle about whispering: “Did she just say Blackthorn?” “What’s a Blackthorn doing learning basic magic?” “Isn’t his father – “

Edward stares fixedly ahead and does his best to ignore them, but it’s not hard to see how tense he is.

“On behalf of the class,” Felicity continues, “can we just say how deeply sorry we are for what you’ve been through?”

I’m surprised he doesn’t actually flinch at that. I would be crawling under the table and wishing the staring classmates and the teacher who thinks she’s being sympathetic would disappear by now. I want to do that a little myself.

“The apology is appreciated,” says Edward coldly. “The pity is not, and nor is the implication that you have any understanding of what I have been through. I am here to learn, not to have my personal affairs discussed.”

There’s more force behind those words than there would have been if he’d screamed them at the top of his lungs, and I cringe internally: you don’t speak to a teacher that way, no matter how much they deserve it.

Felicity steps back a little and then replies “Forgive me. And, of course, we also have joining us… I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name?”

Yup. Definitely hate her. “Tallulah,” I say through gritted teeth, not trusting my self-control enough to risk saying anything else.

“Yes, of course, Tallulah. Now, I’m sure we’re all going to do our best to make Edward and Tallulah very welcome, aren’t we?”

There’s a muttered chorus of assent from the class; thankfully Felicity at least isn’t the sort to force them to sound enthusiastic about the prospect. “So,” she says. “We will continue our study of the General Animation Spell. I have here a set of strings; you will each take one and cast the spell on it. Take as long as you need to practice and play around. Elsie, dear, would you be so good as to hand them out?”

Elsie is sitting at a desk diagonally behind mine: she has long and slightly unkempt light brown hair and is… not exactly overweight, but noticeably less thin than the rest of the class. She stares at the floor as she walks up to Felicity’s desk and takes the strings, doesn’t meet her classmates’ eyes as she hands them out, and practically cringes as she reaches our table.

“Thank you,” I say as I take my string from her, hoping to reassure her a little, though I’m probably not the one she’s nervous around. Unless she’s heard I’m Malaina by now.

Edward thanks her as well, and she manages to stammer out “You’re welcome” before retreating to her own desk.

“And Lizzie – “

“Elizabeth,” corrects the woman at the back in a resigned tone.

“Would you be so kind as to walk Edward and Tallulah through how to cast the spell? Since you’re all Malaina, you should cast in a similar way.”

Well, it was nice being in a room with people who didn’t know I was Malaina while it lasted.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” asks Felicity, clapping her hands. “Get to work!”

Edward and I stare blankly at each other as we wait for Elizabeth to join us. She takes her time dragging her chair across the classroom to set it down in front of our desks, and I take the opportunity to study her: she’s a little taller than average, her body angular, and wears an ill-fitting dark grey dress which contrasts sharply with her vivid red hair.

It’s not usual for Malaina to develop in adults, so I can’t help being a little curious about what caused it in her. Then again, it’s also not usual for Malaina to develop in someone who’s not been exposed to actual trauma.

“I don’t know much about Siaril,” is the first thing she says. If I’m judging her accent right, she’s from the East, near the border with Sirgal – though her high cheekbones and unusually pale skin, not to mention the hair, indicate she has pretty recent Thalian ancestry. “I can’t help you there, Edward.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t need your help there, then.” Edward picks up his string and lets it dangle loosely from one hand, and then says, as if quoting from something: “For it is life.” He releases the string and it hangs there, unmoving.

“Right,” says Elizabeth. “You don’t need my help with Siaril. Got it.”

Edward ignores her, eyes locked on the string as it begins to move, a slow and sinuous twisting from one end to the other.

“I – uh – so. Tallulah. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure anything Felicity told me is any use for Malaina casting – “

My eyes dart frantically across to the teacher in question, but she’s deep in conversation with the blonde girl in robes similar to Edward’s sitting next to Elsie, and doesn’t appear to have heard Elizabeth.

“Look, I don’t care if she hears, okay?” Elizabeth says, seeing my glance. “From what little I know, for something like this at least, there aren’t any rules you’re supposed to follow, it’s just what you feel and believe in. Here – “ she snaps her fingers sharply and snaps “Attent-ion.” Her string floats quickly and smoothly up from the table and holds itself on end, awaiting her next command.

“My mother was a drill sergeant in the Army,” she explains. “I guess the military discipline rubbed off on me somehow, because I cast magic by barking orders at the world.” She laughs a little. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

“I – no crazier than anything else about magic.”

“Fair enough.”

I close my eyes and try to think of the right incantation. Elizabeth casts magic by acting as if she were its commanding officer, and from what little I’ve seen of Edward’s work he seems to have an almost religious reverence for it. What about me, then? What is magic to me?

I remember the only spell I’ve cast so far, the silvery light I created, a light in the ugly darkness. Is that what magic is? A beacon against the night? I don’t think so; that worked before because I was casting a light-spell, not because of some underlying principle.

So, then: animation. I’m guessing from the name of the spell and the way Edward and Elizabeth manipulate their strings that this is an all-purpose spell for moving and manipulating objects. Am I a puppeteer, then, pulling invisible strings?

That idea feels instinctively wrong, and not having anything better to work with I trust my instincts. For it is life: that was the incantation Edward used, and it feels a lot closer to what I’m trying to do. By casting this spell, I’m giving life to this string, granting it the power to move according to my direction.

It falls into place in my mind, and I almost laugh at how simple it is. Incantations aren’t supposed to be complicated: just a single concept, expressed in whatever words feel natural for it.

I hold out my palm a few inches above the table, fix my eyes on the string, and command it: “Be alive.”

And it obeys me, uncoiling itself to fly up from the table into my hand. Before it can settle itself there and rest, I direct it with a thought and it forms into a spiral, moving slowly upward while twisting itself into tight coils.

Slow though it’s moving, the ceiling is only a tall man’s height above where it started, so it only takes a few seconds before it can’t go any further up. I jerk my hand to one side and the string turns that way, straightening itself as it does so.

It feels so easy, so natural. As if it’s right for me to be doing this.

As if it’s right for me to be a magician.

The rest of the lesson is surprisingly fun, given Hannah and Aisha’s warnings. Felicity isn’t much of a teacher, it’s true, but everyone seems to enjoy experimenting with the General Animation Spell as much as I do, if not more. She sets us to passing our strings through the circles we make with finger and thumb, weaving them around our fingers, tying them into knots.

It’s that last where my ability reaches its limits. I’ve never been good with knots even without magic; it took me until I was thirteen to learn how to lace my boots properly. So trying to hold both ends of the string separately in my mind, leave one part still while looping an end through it, never seems to work: I just can’t manage to hold the string in place, and my spell breaks and sends it falling back to the table.

Edward, unsurprisingly, ties each of the increasingly complex knots Felicity demonstrates without any difficulty, and masters undoing them without touching the string just as easily. “It’s easier with Siaril,” he informs me as the ends of the string pull tight a particularly fiendish knot. “I don’t think I could make this one using Malaina.”

That’s probably supposed to be reassuring, but it isn’t: I don’t even understand how the knot fits together, never mind have the ability to create it with magic. Magician I may be, but I’ll never be as good at it as Edward.

No, says a little voice inside me. Nothing is impossible, if you work hard enough.

I recognise that voice: it’s the voice that got me out of bed on the worst mornings, when there was nothing I wanted less than another day at Genford. The voice that pushes me onwards.

The voice that pushed me right over the edge of the precipice.

Our next class is Magical Theory. Well, for all of us except Edward, anyway. He gives me a little wave before wandering off to fill his free period however someone like him spends his free time.

I’m just summoning up the courage to approach Elizabeth and ask whether I can sit with her – I’m assuming the two-per-desk setup is usual here and don’t want to sit on my own feeling awkward – when someone approaches me first.

“Tallulah, isn’t it?” she asks, deftly moving into place beside me despite the small crowd going in the same direction and the narrowness of the corridor. It’s the girl who sat next to Elsie, the one Felicity spent so much time talking to. Her accent is the same as Edward’s: the refined speech of the upper class. “Mildred Cavendish. A pleasure to meet you.”

She extends her hand for me to shake. I take it, noting as I do that she’s pretty and moves with the confidence of someone who’s well aware of that. Her robes are trimmed with the same red lace as Edward’s, though the pattern is more extravagant, and her grip on my hand is firm but not uncomfortable.

She reminds me of a lot of girls I’ve seen at Genford, most of whom wouldn’t even give me the time of day. “I – yes. It’s nice to meet you too,” I stammer.

“How have you found the Academy so far?” Mildred asks.

That isn’t the sort of question that has a simple answer. “It’s not what I expected,” I say. “Though I don’t know what I expected, really. I never even thought I’d be in a place like this – “

Stars, I’m babbling like a child.

“I suppose it must be quite an adjustment,” she says. “I’m lucky, really, having known magic all my life.”

“You’re – “ Siaril, then? I’m about to ask, then realise that’s a stupid question for several reasons: most noble magicians are, and if my theory about the robes I’ve seen several people wearing is right then the colour of the lace indicates the School of a magician. Besides, the Cavendishes are known to be one of the more influential of the old Siaril families – I should have realised that before. “Sorry. Ignore me.”

She laughs. Even her laugh is pretty. “Well,” she says, “I hope I’ll be able to help you adjust. If you have questions about any of it that isn’t covered in class, do feel free to ask.”

“Thank you very much,” I reply. She sounds sincere about it, as well.

“Will you sit with me in this lesson?”

“I – won’t Elsie – “

“Oh, Elsie doesn’t mind. Do you, Elsie?”

She directs that last remark over her shoulder to where Elsie is walking just behind us.

“No – no,” says Elsie, “I don’t.” I glance back to see her expression, which doesn’t reveal any sign that she does in fact mind.

“All right, then,” I say, but I can’t help being suspicious. It’s easy to see that she’s this class’s equivalent of the most popular girls at Genford, all of whom are rich or pretty or have influential parents. Mildred ticks all three of those boxes.

And girls like that don’t invite girls like me to sit with them.