“There are two sides to magic, Push and Pull,” said Mace, beginning the first of all magical lessons. They had converted Thistle’s dining room into a makeshift classroom. The chalkboard she used once belonged to Thistle’s children. Smiling tigers, unicorns, and bears decorated the frame, eagerly awaiting to learn the profound wisdom found in the ABCs. Mace would much prefer it was etched with arcane runes, but when had anything gone her way this week?

She tapped on the board. “Push, is when you use the energy abundant in all things to push elements and molecules to their reaction points. Pull is when you pull power, or knowledge from outside the known universe.”

“You can do that?”

“Not me personally, and most wizards tend to stick with one or the other, but some go both ways. For now, we’ll just stick to push.”

She erased push and pull and replaced them with the words elements, atoms, molecules, and phlogiston.

“Now, can you tell me what elements are?”

“Oh that’s easy, they’re little bits of things that make up everything else!”

“Exactly! Can you name any?”

Thistle seemed to think for a moment. “Well there’s water, earth, and fire,” she began, counting them off on her fingers. “Then sky, poison, metal and lightning of course, um I’m pretty sure black and yellow bile count, and…um…heart?.”

“Wrong!” declared Mace. “Well metal was close, so a half gold star for you. Elements are substances which cannot be broken down into any further substance. The earth beneath our feet? A mixture of silicon, aluminum, iron, with trace amounts of other metals. The air in the sky? Mostly two gasses called Nitrogen and Oxygen. Are you with me so far?”

Thistle looked like she was on the precipice of her whole understanding of reality collapsing. She ventured forward anyway.

“So earth is just a bunch of metal crushed up and mixed together?”

“More or less, there are different mixtures depending on the kind of dirt or rock you use, but some collect into seams. That’s how we mine elements like gold, silver, copper, etcetera.”

“Gold and silver are elements? They should have added those to water and fire! said Thistle.

Of course, thought Mace. Their ears always perked up when they heard gold and silver. No one cared about carbon despite it being much more important. Well if it got Thistle to listen.

It should be noted that Munth has several more elements on its periodic table. There was musium, the element of preservation. Colisium, the opposite of carbon which seemed to fight against bonds. And of course of neversium, the element of surprise.

“They are, in fact, elements. Now, what can you tell me about atoms?”

“Well my youngest is an Atom,” she said.

Mace had been well informed about Thistle’s many, many children. Most of the rooms in Ye Olde Roadhouse had once belonged to her children. Mace had found a disturbing amount of dried boogers behind her room’s nightstand.

“Anything else about atoms?” she asked Thistle.

She shook her head. “I’ve read books about them, but I didn’t understand most of it.”

It was good that she admitted she didn’t know much, it already put her ahead of most students.

“Atoms are the smallest bits of an element. So small that you couldn’t even see them with a microglass,” she said

“Aw, tiny little guys,” said Thistle.

“Right. They can be further divided into protons, neutrons, and electrons. Electrons orbit around the protons and neutrons which cluster together. You can picture it like…” Mace searched for an example.

“Like how everything circles around Munth? Each in its own shell?”

Mace paused. Thistle could sneak up on you, and it seemed her mind could do it too.

“About halfway there, but wizards now think that the moons in that example teleport around.”

“You lost me,” said Thistle.

“Well it’s still all very theoretical, but we’re fairly certain that when they teleport around, they pop into the same general area around the protons and neutrons -what we call an orbital. Anyway, that's a conversation for another day.”

Mace moved her wooden spoon pointer to molecules. “Molecules are what happen when you stick atoms together. Water, for example, is an oxygen atom with two hydrogens stuck on. Simple enough?”

Thistle nodded.

Mace finally pointed at phlogiston. “Phlogiston is the medium of a wizard’s power. We used to think it was a substance in combustible materials, but now we know it to be a particle with the properties of both energy and matter. Phlogiston exists with everything, the air you breath, the food you eat, the water you drink. Pushers use phlogiston to cause chemical reactions at a distance. They can direct their phlogiston to turn molecules into other molecules.”

A look of deep confusion painted Thistle’s face. When you tried to explain how invisible particles could manipulate invisible bits of matter, everyone got this look plastered over their face. “Maybe an example would help?”

“Rust is an easy example,” said Mace.

Thistle's eyes lit up. “I saw Turpenwile do that!”

“It’s a fairly common spell. Usually taught in the first year. When pure iron comes into contact with moisture, or H2O, a chemical reaction occurs over time. It becomes an iron oxide, or rust. Master Turpenwile used his phlogiston and the moisture in his breath to speed up the reaction.”

Push magic was all essentially chemistry at a distance by way of phlogiston. The word chemistry came from the word ‘khem’, which in turn came from the name of Khemberly, the Mother of Modern Push Magic.

The lesson continued like this for a few hours. Mace listed possible molecular combinations and their reactions while Thistle’s brain tried to keep up. As the weight of knowledge pressed on her brain, she began to slouch in her seat.

“Hold on,” said Thistle. “How was Miss Durana able to turn her finger into a snake?”

“Tria Durana is a special case,” said Mace. In more ways than one, she thought. “She’s a special kind of pusher called a Scion. Back when the new gods ruled, they took some humans and experimented on their genes, in turn allowing them to manipulate their own genes, which are made up of chemicals.”

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“Genes?” asked Thistle.

“You know,” Mace waved vaguely. “Your traits, the small stuff that makes you you.”

“Huh, she seemed more like a skirt kind of girl,” said Thistle. She dropped her pencil and stretched. “You know, I think my brain might be frying just a bit.”

“Yeah you’re probably right. Too much theory can overload the brain.” said Mace as she scrubbed the chalkboard. She slumped down onto Thistle’s kitchen stools. But as soon as she sat, she leapt up as a thought struck her. Her eyes lit up. “What you need is some practical, hands-on learning!”

“Are you sure this is how it’s done?” asked Thistle, hand outstretched towards the pot. It was filled with water and sat on an oven mitt on the table. Far away from any heat source.

“It’s the simplest teaching method I can think of, quite common in elementary schools,” she said. “Since everyone knows how a pot boils, it’s pretty easy to use your phlogiston to heat it up.

“And all I have to do is point and it?” asked Thistle.

“And will your phlogiston to it. Really the pointing is just to help your mind guide it. There’s nothing inherently magical about a staff or a wand. They’re really just pointers.”

“How…mystical,” said Thistle sarcastically.

“Look, all you have to do is breathe in.” Thistle did so. “And breathe out your energy. Remember, you're a conduit of the universe. Power flows through you as it does everything. As a child of this world, that energy is your birthright.”

Thistle breathed out, willing every ounce of energy out her body, down her arm, and into the pot.

Nothing happened.

“Well no one gets it on their first try,” said Mace. “Pick yourself up and try again, my uncle always says.”

She did try again, and again, and again, for an hour. Mace tested the water, still lukewarm. Thistle’s arm was visibly shaking from the exhaustion of willing energy to heat the water, or from keeping it up too long.

Thistle’s arm collapsed to the table. “Maybe this would be easier with a demonstration from you?”

Mace froze. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she quickly lied. “And wizard’s tend to specialize. I’m not too good with boiling water.”

“I thought you said it was one of the easiest methods?” she asked.

Mace knew she couldn’t keep this up forever. She hadn’t been able to keep it up at school. Thistle asked too many damn good questions. She needed to postpone just long enough to find a way out of Cobpleton.

“I don’t want to deprive you of a learning experience, and besides, I am weary and must rest.”

The old reliable spell of ‘I must rest’. Worked on curious students as well as energetic children.

“Let’s break for today,” said Mace. “We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow.

A gentle rain washed over the roadhouse. The pair had settled in the den. Thistle made Mace a cup of honeyed tea while she settled down to read. It wasn’t actually reading, her collection of academic books were still difficult to parse, but she was beginning to see the pictures in a new light. She realized quickly that atomic diagrams didn’t do the thing nearly enough justice. Everything, from the page she turned to the wood crackling in the fire to her very essence, were atoms. Infinitesimally small solar systems with teleporting planets, spinning all of reality around themselves. It was all, well, magical.

Thistle looked over at her teacher and smiled to herself. Her very own wizard, teaching her magic. She was decades younger than herself, but you couldn’t really afford those old bearded sages in this economy. Her mentor was staring out the window. She could see that Mace’s eyes were fixed on the forest, the evergreens swaying with the wind and rain. Thistle wondered if Mace was feeling a bit homesick. She resolved to make her home as comfortable for Mace as possible.

Outside, Thistle’s flowers drank in the rain. Today’s entrée was a pâté of soil, a root watering mix of feldspar, micas, and clay. All soaked in a rich sauce of hydrogen with half as much oxygen. They were a bit spoiled this season, fresh water was practically falling from the sky. But they had all heard about this new water through the vine. A fountain that had sprung up deep underground, near where that human was doing all those experiments. This new water apparently had a salty kick, and more of it was gushing out by the day.

Thistle felt her eyes droop. For folks who worked with liquids so much, their textbooks were awfully dry. The rain trickling on her thatched roof didn’t do her any favors. She looked over to Mace, already asleep and curled up in a quilt. Thistle closed the book and sat back in her rocking chair. Her eyes closed. She listened to rain on her roof, the snapping of twigs in the fire, and the creak of her chair slowly rocking on her floor, and willed them to tell her their secrets. Everything was magic, she thought as she drifted off.

A rapping at her door startled her awake. Mace jolted up too.

“Who is it?” called Thistle

“Mail!” came a throaty voice.

“Oh, the mail corvey’s here!” she said

“Mail corvey?” asked Mace.

Thistle opened the door. Standing on her porch was a nearly five foot tall raven, shaking water off his feathers. His beak fished into the pouch strapped to his chest and fished out a bundle of letters.

“A little sprinkled but no damage,” said the corvey.

“Thank you Ringa!” said Thistle, then thought for a moment. “Are you alright to fly in this rain?”

“Oh it’s nothing too bad,” said Ringa. “Through wind, rain, sleet and snow, and all that.”

“Well I’m not sure what kind of things a corvey catches, but it still can’t be good for your health. Please come in a dry off, at least until the rain lets up.”

Ringa cocked his head to one side. “Well, if it's not too much trouble.”

She led the bird inside, but not before he cleaned his talons of mud.

Ringabell, or Ringa for short, walked into the den. Mace looked at him nonchalantly, but Thistle sensed that she was a bit uneasy. Uneasy because he was a corvey or because he was a stranger? Has Mace ever seen a corvey before? She was from the city where Thistle knew that things were different. But surely a place as modern as the city would have corvies, dwarves, behemoths, and merfolk all traipsing around like normal. Well maybe the merfolk would have trouble with the traipsing part.

“Mace, this is Cobpleton’s mail corvey, Ringabell. Ringabell, Mace Perovay, a wizard from the city.”

Ringa saluted Mace with a wing, which wasn’t a particularly natural gesture for an avian, but corvey body language didn’t translate well. “At your service Miss Wizard!” He took Mace’s hand firmly with his foot.

“Do you not have many corvies in the city? You’re looking at me a bit strange. Don’t worry I don’t peck!” Ringa had noticed Mace’s unease too. He had spent most of his life in Cobpleton, which was almost exclusively human.

“Oh no we get a lot of corvies, even at Aethowix. It’s just that I’m a bit…you know…shy around strangers,” she answered.

“Hopefully strangers for not much longer!” croaked Ringa.

Mace’s eyes looked all around the corvey, but never directly into his eyes. Oh, so that was it, Thistle realized. Her youngest son, Atom, had the same thing. She had found it hard to get him to look her in the eyes. Thistle thought it was a problem, but Cornsilk had reassured her that it was quite normal. ‘He’s just reading a person’s body and face like a book!’ he had said. ‘Like how we would listen to their voice to determine their mood’. A corvey’s face was as nearly inhuman as you could get in Cobpleton, so no wonder Mace was having a hard time reading it. She wasn’t prejudiced, her brain just worked differently.

“Anyway,” cawed Ringa. “You had a letter from Cornsilk, postmarked from before he died.”

Mace and Thistle shot each other a glance.

“You don’t think…” asked Mace slowly.

“It could be,” said Thistle.

“What’s this now?” asked Ringa.

Thistle fumbled through the mail until she found it. It was a rich parchment with Cornsilk’s signature golden ink. Thistle held her breath and peeled it open. She let her breath out.

“Not the will,” she sighed.

Mace’s shoulder fell.

“Cornsilk’s will?” asked Ringa.

“It’s missing,” said Mace. “If it ever existed in the first place.”

“The funny,” said Ringa, pecking at his wing. “I could’ve sworn I saw a will in the mail.”

Thistle and Mace’s hopes rose.

“‘Course it could’ve been a mailing list. He was trying to send out recipes before he died and your human cursive is all so…swishy. It’s hard enough to tell one letter from another.”

And their hopes fell.

“Wait, mailing list?” asked Mace.

“Recipes?” chorused Thistle. “Recipes for what?”

“See for yourself.” Ringa pointed his beak at Cornsilk’s letter. “I got mine this morning.”

Thistle really looked at the letter for the first time.

“Cornsilk’s Flavor of the Month. Cooking Potatoes that Write for You,” she stated.

Mace looked over her shoulder and said, “I’m no cook, but I don’t think a pinch of salt mixes well with a cup of Spirits from the Underworld.”