Tezi felt sick as she walked around the circular walls protecting the ritual chamber. She had gone for a stroll to calm her mind. Nature magic seeped out of the centre like syrup from one of Jenny's cakes*. If she closed her eyes and concentrated she could almost taste the magic; it was grassy* and cloyed in her mouth, unwilling to leave. The thick stone walls were hard-pressed to contain the flora from within and instead seemed consumed by it. Vines hung onto every crack and tree branches bulged over the wall to form great awnings.

Looking to the east she could see a collection of wizard towers peaking up from the top of rolling hills. The Academy and her home away from home. They had come down into the vale to one of the most potent collections of magic in the county. The ritual chamber was built around it, subduing its power for the magically inclined. She longed to be back in her room with a book and a hot mug of tea. She was halfway through 100 sonnets for the idle romantic*.

She remembered sneaking down to the ritual chamber when she was still an apprentice. The wards drove her and her friends off with small jolts of lightning when they tried to climb the walls. It had sent them shrieking off back to the towers and a harsh scolding from the head wizard for dirtying their uniforms. As she pressed her hand on the cool stone today, she felt nothing but the gentle hum of power. She had been so eager then... compared to now. Inside was her destiny, or part of it. The fact that it could make or break her future sat heavy on her shoulders, and now her stomach.

Tezi sighed as she heard someone call her name and trudged back to the chamber's entrance. Okey, her beloved mentor, long of beard and age, stood with her fellow apprentices outside a wooden gate.

"Ahh, Tezi," he waved her over, "Everyone has finished their summoning. It is your turn at last"

She noticed Jenny sitting with a badger, its face currently burried in a pie tin. Salvador was petting a handsome duck whose bills sported a pair of horns. The blanket of fog that spurted out when it quacked surprised her. But not as much as Trinity's familiar. A swarm of bees with golden fur flew in circles around the centaur. She looked like a statue, eyes closed and feverously whispering mantras.

"Master Okey," said Tezi, "I'm feeling a bit under the weather. Can't we reschedule my summoning? How about next week? Next week sounds nice."

"You think too little of yourself Tezi," he replied. "You are an amazing witch and will do fine summoning a familiar of your own."

Tezi respected Okey but had found that he was an optimist, to a fault.

"But look!" She pointed to a pair of jay-birds as they danced and flirted around the flower heavy vines. Tezi's face was like a stone. "It's a bad omen. Birds!"

Okey pulled on his beard and narrowed his eyes. "Hmm. If they were ravens, perhaps." He looked at Tezi. "But we're wasting good daylight. In you go." He shooed Tezi towards the gate.

"But it's a bad luck to do magic on a Wednesday! Aunty Etta always says that!" She looked down at her robes. "And my robes are blue! Wasn't blue the colour Astrum the Great* was wearing when he became entombed in stone? No, this won't do at all. We must reschedule!" she said with a finger in the air.

Okey smiled at her, "Dear Etta hasn't done a speck of magic in her life and I seem to remember you doing magic on Wednesdays before."

Her world was crashing in on itself.

"Astrum's entombing was over one thousand years ago," he gave Tezi a pointed look, "and no one knew what coloured robes he was wearing."

"Don't worry Tezi it wasn't that hard," said Jenny.

Oh, sweet sweet naive Jenny.

"Yeah, just do your best," said Salvador.

Salvador looked at her and she became hopelessly lost in his eyes. Why was he so dreamy?

While Salvador's eyes distracted her they all but pushed her into the chamber. The wooden gate closed like the lid of a coffin and all Tezi heard was the beating of her heart pounding in her head.

So called friends! How could they leave her to this fate? To her ultimate failure. She would learn the darkest magiks and scour the deepest tombs. Her revenge would be legenda-

She breathed in and out. Then did it again. People always said her emotions ran high at times. Clapping her flushed cheeks she readied herself and turned around.

The chamber was like a rainforest. Hot and humid and bursting with uncontained life. Tezi followed a path of broken saplings and foilage made by the others. She found a gazebo standing in the middle of a shallow lake. stepping stone leading themselves across.

As she skipped across the lake she saw the magic circle inscribed into the stone in the gazebo. Deep blue lines that hummed like a beating heart. She could taste the magic. Nature coated her tongue; it was peppery and made her eyes water.

"So now I have to summon a familiar, huh."

There was no book written on how to summon a familiar. She had looked. The most she could hope for were the personal accounts and diaries of wizards and witches. What she found was that everyone's method is different. Zylon, the sturdy Dryad, had planted a flower native to his village inside the chamber and a praying mantis made of shimmering moonlight had answered his call. Fiona Rosewood had conjured a storm that raged and crashed for a week and a whisp of deep red had come. Elena and Jaques, the miracle twins, had gone in together and had come out with a snake each. One white and one black. They never spoke a word of what happened.

It was no doubt that summoning was a personal thing. For Tezi, there could only ever be one thing. Poetry. She loved to read poetry and even tried writing her own at times. Like a secret, she kept it close to her heart and never shared it with anyone. For today, she had spent the last week writing a poem. It was traditionally witchy. Very on-brand.

Tezi stepped into the middle of the magic circle and pulled out a piece of paper from her robes and began to read.

Spirits of the night, I beseech thee,

Find favor with mine call and summons,

On the seven winds I beg thee travel,

As she recited her poem she felt the already unbearable presence of magic swell. It thrummed faster as she spoke and her voice became distorted. It rang out in an ethereal timbre.

And greet me in mine presence,

For a speaking of things that need bespoke,

From this moment hence,

Halfway through poem and streaming eyes, the thrumming power reverberated through her whole body. It all became too much and she ran to the water's edge and heaved up her breakfast.

"Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit."

Vomiting in the middle of a summoning had to be bad. Terrible. Why didn't anyone listen to her? Despite her protests, the magic grew to a breaking point and she rushed back to the circle to finish her poem.

Thy powers do I wish invoke,

For things that need be done.*

Please please please please come.

Okay, so she rushed the ending.

Magic inverted itself. Instead of its overwhelming presence, Tezi gasped at its absence.

She heard ragged breathing behind her. Was that her familiar? She turned, exhilarated and terrified, and froze at the sight.

On the wet stone floor lay a being taller than herself. Most unsettling was the lack of fur, except on its head where it grew in short tuffs. It sported four gangly limbs. Unclothed, there was nothing to stop the vision of twisting, corded muscles that layered its body.

It opened its mouth and rasped. "What the fuck?"