Elise woke up gasping.

“Woah, hey girl, are you ok?” Mary sat across the room brushing her hair. “Bad dream?”

Elise nodded, holding a hand to her face. “There was…” She paused. What was she dreaming about? It was so vivid and frightening just a moment ago and now… gone. Well, most of it was. “Someone was playing chess against me, I think,” she said, groggily.

“You suck at chess,” Mary chuckled.

“Maybe that’s why it was a nightmare,” shrugged Elise, laying back down.

“Wake up, lazy bones, it's like noon,” said Mary. “Even Biscuit got bored and wandered off downstairs somewhere.”

Oh yeah, that’s right. Elise had nearly forgotten about the dark blue cat. It was only last night that they found him, but part of her thought it might’ve been a dream. She was excited about learning new things, but it was all a lot to deal with. She groaned and covered her head with a pillow.

“Up!” Mary pulled the covers off Elise.

“I don’t come to your house and tell you when to wake up,” mumbled Elise, rolling over.

“You literally did that last week. Don’t make me be the reasonable one here.”

Elise rolled out of bed and, without bothering to open her eyes, threw on a pair of comfortable pants and an oversized shirt. This was not a good day to leave the house, she decided. Despite her tiredness, having her eyes closed still allowed her to see Ichor in the air when she focused. Mary’s was easy to feel, being in the same room, but she could very faintly see a dense concentration of it from downstairs that was likely Biscuit. It was an interesting thought that she might be able to practically see through walls with enough practice, but that was a thought for a more awake Elise to have.

“Ah, good morning girls,” said Tobias from the kitchen as Mary and Elise came down the stairs. He was already up and fully dressed, but he had bags under his eyes. Biscuit was in his book form on the countertop. “Ah, Maven, I went to see your parents this morning. I told them you’re here and everything’s fine, and I said we asked for your help with Elise’s studies. They didn’t believe me, but they said you’re fine to stay here again tonight if you would like.”

“Aw thanks, that was nice of you,” Mary said as she and Elise sat at the dining table. “So are we going to be doing more with Biscuit today?”

“Yes, I’ve been doing a bit of reading and I believe I know where we should look into next—wait, Biscuit?” He looked between Mary, Elise, and the book. “You named this magical artifact Biscuit?”

Mary nodded enthusiastically while Elise just groaned and set her head down on the table.

“Are you feeling alright, dear?” Tobias walked over and placed the back of his hand on Elise’s forehead.

“She was up all night levitating everything she could,” said Mary.

“She’s running a fever.” Tobias frowned, and turned to grab the spell book. He closed his eyes, and focused intently. “Her Ichor is a lot dimmer than it was last night. Maybe she over exerted herself? Here, Elise” —he handed her the book—”Take this and try to meditate for a while.”

Elise, who was barely listening, took the book from her father, sat it on the table, and laid her head on it.

“If that doesn’t work, we might have to get Roland up here to take a look at her. She’s been groggy before but not like this.”

Mary perked up at the mention of Roland, and after a moment she seemed to realize something. “Wait, don’t we need to tell him about all… this?” She gestured to the book.

Tobias grimaced and took a sharp breath through his teeth. “Roland… Well… You know him, he can’t keep a secret to save his life. You remember how he was when I first got my cough: he told everyone. I don’t think we’re ready to show this book to everyone just yet.”

Mary nodded, but frowned. “I don’t feel great about it, but I get your point.”

Tobias nodded, sadly. “We’ll tell him soon, once we get this figured out more.” He glanced at Elise, who still had her forehead pressed to the book, and stroked her hair. “Are you feeling any better, dear?”

Elise nodded and lifted her head, resting her chin on the book, her eyes still closed. Mary reached over and poked Elise gently on the nose, getting her to smile sleepily and, eventually, open her eyes.

“I’m glad. I’ve been reading a little further ahead in the book and I think I know what we should try next.”

“Flying?” Mary asked excitedly.

“Sleep spell?” Elise yawned.

Tobias paused and quickly turned to jot two things down on a list he had on the counter. “Later. I was very curious about these ‘affinities’ that were mentioned a few times, so I asked… Biscuit… and he showed me a passage about them.” He placed his hand on the book and waited for Elise to move her head off of it, which she did with much groaning. He had the book flip to a page titled “Arcane Affinities.”

“What I’ve gathered is that all physical objects have some amount of Ichor in them, but the affinity of the Ichor is different based on the kind of object. Like we, as living beings, have life affinity Ichor in us, but, say, a rock has earth affinity Ichor. There are two different categories of affinities, actually: physical, and conceptual.”

“Conceptual?” Asked Elise.

“Yes, concepts like time and space have their own affinity of Ichor,” Tobias replied. “It sounds like manipulating them could be incredibly interesting but it looks very complicated, so we’ll stick to the other one for now. Physical seems much simpler, but that’s relatively speaking, none of this is simple. Physical Ichor is air, fire, water, earth, and the like. There’s a lot of different ones.”

“What affinity does Biscuit have,” asked Mary.

“Ooh, that’s the interesting part, he has no affinity,” replied Tobias. “That’s what makes it so useful. Most Ichor cores have their own specific affinities that dictate what type of Ichor they can store. As living beings, our cores are of the life affinity so while we may be able to draw any type of Ichor into them, only life affinity Ichor can be stored there and any other affinity will just seep out. The book’s core has no affinity, so we could potentially store any type of Ichor inside it.”

“So, where should we start?” Elise was still exhausted, but the excitement of learning something new overpowered everything else.

“Well, from a practical standpoint, I’d like to learn to use fire spells,” said Tobias. “Being able to make fire on command would save us a lot of money on matches.”

“Screw practicality, shooting fire from my hands sounds cool!” Mary was practically bouncing with excitement.

“Is that how it works, though,” asked Elise. “We learn to change Ichor into the fire affinity and then we can just make fire on command?”

“That was my understanding,” he replied. “I could be wrong but it’s worth trying if for no other reason than to figure out how it does work.”

Elise shrugged, and asked Biscuit to show them a simple fire spell. The pages flipped to one titled “Basic Arcane Flame” and Elise began to read aloud.

“Basic Arcane Flame is the simplest spell using the fire affinity. It acts as a stepping stone for more advanced fire spells as well as a convenient source of light and heat. To conjure an arcane flame, one must convert Ichor to the fire affinity and coat their hand with it. Only then will they draw the Ichor into the rune shown below and conjure the flame in their hand. The flame must be consistently fed in order to stay lit and must not be allowed to grow out of control.”

“So it’s just a balancing act,” observed Tobias.

“Wait,” said Mary. “If it wants us to hold the fire in our hands, how would it not burn us?”

“Hmm,” Elise skimmed over the rest of the page. “Oh, that’s why you coat your hand in fire Ichor first. It’s a barrier against the heat.”

“So how do we know how to change Ichor into fire,” asked Tobias. “It just said to do it, not how. It seems like an important detail to leave out, maybe we missed something.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Why don’t we just light a real fire and see if we can’t feel the Ichor for ourselves,” asked Mary.

“Oh, smart!,” Elise said, wishing she’d thought of it.

They each got up and gathered around the fireplace. Tobias filled it with wood and lit it with a match. The fire grew quickly and crackled loudly, bathing them all in warmth. They had discovered the previous night that Biscuit cannot spread his Ichor reserves between two people at once, so they each had to take turns holding the book to meditate.

Elise got to go first, and she sat on the floor facing the fire. With the book in hand, she closed her eyes and began to focus. Soon she was able to visualize the Ichor around her, flowing throughout everything. She tried to feel the differences between the Ichor in different objects. The life Ichor cycled through each of them like veins, pumping in and out of the cores in their chests. The Ichor of the air around them was still and gentle, slightly flowing in the breeze. The fire’s Ichor was more energetic and moved faster. It felt to Elise like it was eager to consume, grow, and spread.

She took a deep breath in through her nose and absorbed some of the air’s Ichor into the book’s core. She tried manipulating it and forcing it to move as quickly and energetically as the Ichor in the fireplace. The air affinity Ichor seemed to resist the changes. She gave it one final push, but the Ichor pushed back, stubbornly refusing to take on the properties of fire and causing the pain in her head to flare. Defeated, Elise simply released the air Ichor back into the room.

“I got nothing,” she said, opening her eyes and holding her hand to her head. “I could feel the difference between air and fire but I couldn’t change one into the other.” She handed the book to Mary who was clearly bored of sitting still. “I hope these headaches aren’t a consistent thing,” she added.

Tobias patted her gently on the shoulder. “From what I’ve gathered, the more you practice with Ichor, the larger your core will get and the more you’ll be able to do without wearing yourself out. It’s like a muscle you need to exercise. I think you just did too much too fast. Why don’t you lie down while we give this a try?”

She nodded, moved out of the way so Mary could sit across from the fireplace, and laid down on the cold wood floor. She closed her eyes and began to meditate. Without the book, it took longer for Ichor to become visible, and once it did it was hazier than before. For a while, she just practiced pulling air Ichor into her, holding it in her core, and letting it out slowly. It was a simple exercise, not dissimilar to breathing. At first she was only doing it to try to soothe her head, but then she began to notice more of the Ichor’s behavior.

Air affinity Ichor seemed to like to fill the space it’s in evenly. Wherever she pulled some of it into her, more rushed in to take its place. Makes sense, she thought. That’s just how air works. She noticed that the more she observed about the air affinity, the easier it was to distinguish from other affinities. She pulled more air Ichor into her core, but instead of holding it still, she tried to condense it into one small area and force it to stay there instead of spreading out. It took her a few tries and a great amount of effort, but she finally got it to stay where she put it.

She heard Mary and her father speak, but she wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying. She could see the Ichor in the book as it was handed from Mary to Tobias. The distraction caused her to lose focus on her ball of air ichor and it dispersed. Trying to reform it, she realized that the air affinity Ichor was now a slight blue-ish white color instead of the brilliant gold that all Ichor was before.

“Hey, guys,” she said, opening her eyes and sitting up, causing Mary to jump. “What color is the air Ichor when you focus on it?”

“Gods, Ellie. I thought you were asleep.” Mary clutched her chest dramatically.

Tobias just frowned and closed his eyes for a moment. “Gold, like everything else.”

“Ok, both of you take a minute and just focus on the air and how it feels and behaves.”

They did as she said, slightly confused. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Tobias, who still had the book, opened his eyes first.

“My goodness,” he said. “it’s turned blue!”

“Wait, hang on,” said Mary, “I haven’t got it yet.”

Several more minutes later, she, too, opened her eyes. “Ooh yeah, I totally see it now.”

“Why has it changed color?” asked Tobias.

“I think when you learn enough about an affinity you can sense it easier,” replied Elise. “I don’t know for sure, though. I’m going to try it with fire.”

Elise laid down and closed her eyes once again. This time, she focused all her senses on the fireplace. To her surprise, she noticed small streaks of blue air affinity Ichor mixed with the still golden fire Ichor. It was small and subtle, and she likely wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t turned blue. The fire didn’t move erratically like she initially thought. It, like the air, wanted to fill the space it was in by spreading and growing. However unlike the air, fire was tethered to its heat source; the Ichor fading as it got further from it. As she observed, she realized that fire wasn’t too different from air; it depended on it. Slowly, the fire’s Ichor transitioned from gold to a deep orange.

“May I see the book please,” she asked quietly so as to not disturb the other’s meditation, and Tobias silently handed it to her.

She held the book in one hand, open to the page on the fire spell, and pressed her other hand onto the page. She pulled the air Ichor into the book’s core and condensed it into a ball, forcing it to be still. She then pulled in more air and held it separately from the first ball. It was quite difficult to stop them from mixing, but having the book made it slightly easier to control. She then willed the first ball of air to heat up and take on the properties of fire. When it resisted and tried to push back, she mixed the second ball with the first. The second ball acted like bellows in a forge, causing the first ball to ignite and become fire.

It was hard to control the fire and the book became slightly hot to the touch. Working quickly, she coated her hand in the Ichor and coerced the rest of it into the flowing shape of the rune. It was difficult to stop it from growing and spreading, but soon she was able to hold the shape. She raised her hand up and opened her eyes to see a small flame suspended above her palm.

“I got it!” She exclaimed, careful not to let it out of her control. Both Mary and Tobias opened their eyes to look at her in amazement.

“That’s so cool,” said Mary.

“I must agree,” said Tobias. “Is it hot? Does it hurt you at all?”

“Doesn’t hurt, but I can tell it’s hot,” Elise replied. The ball of fire Ichor in the book was depleted, and the flame in her hand slowly petered out. “Aw. Looks like you have to actively keep doing it to keep the flame going.”

Mary made grasping motions towards the book. “How’d you do it, let me see.”

Elise chuckled and handed her the book. She spent the next hour describing how she cast the spell, and eventually Tobias was able to hold a small flame. His hand began to shake while holding the flame, causing it to become unstable and go out. During her explanation, she attempted to create fire Ichor in her own core without the book, but found herself unable to control the air Ichor enough to transform it.

Suddenly becoming curious, she pulled air Ichor into her core and compressed it down into a size she could easily manipulate. It took a while to gain control over the ball of Ichor, but once she had it she searched for an easy target somewhere around her. She spotted a rolled-up piece of parchment nearby and put all her focus on it. She held out her hand and tried to push the Ichor she had gathered to connect with it. It took her a few tries to get a consistent stream of Ichor to extend that far, but eventually she made contact with the parchment.

Using all her willpower, Elise made the stream of Ichor coat the surface of the parchment and willed it to move. Slowly, the piece of parchment began to rise into the air. As it rose, she felt herself lose control and in a slight panic she quickly pulled the Ichor back to her, causing the parchment to fly in her direction and collide with her face.

Mary laughed at the sight, but then stopped short. “Wait, did you do that without a rune?”

Elise rubbed her nose in amused frustration. “Yeah, but it was really hard to control.”

“Apparently,” Tobias chuckled. “But really, that was impressive.”

----------------------------------------

Mary sat at the dinner table, bouncing her leg. Elise seemed to have a gift for sensing and using Ichor, and while that didn’t upset Mary, she didn’t want to be seen as incompetent or slow. All of this magic and spell business was just about the coolest thing Mary had ever seen, but it just wasn’t clicking for her.

Soon she would have to go back home and she would lose access to Biscuit’s runes until she could come back. She hated having to rely on the book for everything, she much preferred to be able to just jump into action. She loved doing things and being creative, not studying and doing everything by the book. However, the book said it was possible to learn to cast a spell without needing its help, and she knew Elise was able to do it, so she must be able to do it too.

She closed her eyes and tried to feel the Ichor around her. It was harder for her to sense it than it was for Elise and Tobias, and seemingly took significantly longer for her to be able to visualize it. Every time she would try to sit still and focus on the Ichor, her mind would always wander and make her have to start over. After a moment, she could begin to see the Ichor floating around her. It took a lot of effort to focus for so long and the image was hazy, but she was determined to keep it in her sights.

She could tell she was surrounded by air Ichor, but it hadn’t actually turned blue for her as it did for Elise and her father.

I couldn’t even make the damn air change colors like the others. I only said I did because they were waiting on me.

She could feel the Ichor in the fork sitting on the table in front of her. She didn’t know what affinity the metal fork was, but the thing was small so she figured it couldn’t be too hard to levitate. She breathed in and pulled Ichor into her core and focused on extending it out to the fork. It wasn’t far from her, but sending the Ichor out that far from her core was difficult. She pushed the small tendril of Ichor out as far as she could, but it fell just short of the fork. She slumped as it dissipated back into the room.

She started bouncing her leg faster, her face set into a scowl. She stared daggers at the fork as if it was its fault. Taking deep breaths, she held onto her leg to force it to stop moving.

She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder as Elise whispered, “You can do it.” Mary didn’t even realize the others were watching. She deflated as the tension drained from her.

She gathered Ichor back into her core; a little more this time. She tried condensing it into a ball, as Elise described doing to cast the fire spell. It was difficult to keep it from expanding, and she had to release it and start over a few times, but after a few minutes she had a ball of mostly obedient air Ichor. She extended it out to the fork, noting that it moved where she told it to much more willingly now. It made contact with the fork and she wrapped it in the Ichor. Hesitating slightly, she willed the fork to rise.

It was slow and shaky, but the fork lifted off the table. Mary considered celebrating right then, but held off. She kept the fork up as long as she could, and a few seconds later it fell back down with a clatter. She released a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and finally looked up at the others. Tobias was beaming at her with pride and Elise gave her a side hug.

“Great work, dear,” said Tobias.

“That was awesome Mary!” Elise squeezed her.

“I should probably be getting home soon,” said Mary the next morning. She stayed over longer than intended and she needed to see if her father needed any help running the shop. Selling paintings and sculptures in the market was hard with how high taxes were these days, so Mary liked to help where she could.

Elise whined in protest and hugged onto her to stop her from leaving. Biscuit, who was laying on Elise’s lap, jumped up onto Mary’s shoulder and meowed his complaints at Elise’s sudden movement.

“You may come by at any time, you’re always welcome here,” said Tobias. “Now, I have to ask something of you. Something difficult. I need you to promise to keep this book a secret from everyone, even your parents. This would be devastating in the wrong hands and we need to keep our cards close to the chest for now.”

“Ah yes, the cost of ultimate power: not being able to show it off,” she joked.

“Please, Maria. This is important.” Tobias using not only her real name but her full name was rare. The lack of their running joke made Mary realize how serious this was.

“I understand. I won’t tell anybody, and I’ll only practice when I’m alone,” she said, matching his tone.

“Good, thank you. That goes for you too, Elise.”

“I know, I know,” replied Elise, finally detaching herself from her friend. “I’ll come get you if we find out anything cool or important,” she said to Mary.

“You better,” Mary laughed. “See you, Ellie. Bye Mr. G.”

“Byyeeee,” Said Elise, holding up Biscuit and waving his paw for him.

With a wave, Mary set off to her home, knowing the biggest secret of her life and not being able to tell anybody.