If I've learned anything from professor Wonderhoff, it's that not understanding a style of spell craft or rejecting its form doesn't mean it's flawed. We're 'butting heads,' so I know I'm doing it right. [Madders Burnswitch] knows that, too—you've seen his art. This is mine (see 'Hexing Submissions' section).

—MAXWELL O'HARA, HEXER (G.H.), INVENTOR, IN A MORBID MAGAZINE INTERVIEW (APPRENTICE EDITION).

"Grandpa, when I grow up, I wanna be a vintage broomstick collector!" said a little girl, swinging her legs off a parapet. "I'm gonna have all the classics: an O'Hara Ascent, a Levstick 2000, and maybe even a Wonderhoff Prime!"

"That'll be quite the collection," her grandfather said, ruffling the curls of her short raven-black hair. "Wonderhoff Prime... There's a stick I haven't seen fly in ages."

"Daddy showed me polaroids of a replica you'd crafted together when he was a boy," she said.

"Did we?" the old man asked, stroking his scruffy white beard. His gaze lingering across the spacious courtyard lined with dozens of yellowdwarf trees—not a leaf fell from the ancient living giants as the wind howled. The old man clicked his tongue.

"He also said you'd probably deny it because you'd never admit that a Wonderhoff had thought up something useful a Burnswitch had no hand in," said the little girl.

"Madders said so?"

"Uh-huh. Daddy said you used to be a stubborn old man who got bitter when the prodigious whizzard O'Hara bested his boy at spell craft."

The boy can't say so to my face, so he uses his daughter? Ha! The old man thought, laughing a madman's laugh in his baritone.

"Is it true, Grandpa? Did Daddy... lose to the whizzard of spell craft?" The little girl asked. Her hazel eyes were intent on her grandfather's face.

"Hmm. In his younger years, your father's reluctant disposition often shadowed his capabilities. O'Hara barely bested Madders—it was a tie," the old man said, his gaze drifting to a flock of seagulls on the distant horizon. "Their styles couldn't be more different, but both lads were some of Littlegiant's finest apprentices. Your father lost when old Wonderhoff settled the duel in a Show of Hats. I was... too hard on him. He lost only because of Littegiant's rules. Ethical hexing? Absurd. In the real world of applied sorcery, it doesn't matter how you solve a problem with spell craft."

The little girl's eyes beamed. As her grandfather spoke, the sea breeze rustled through the trees, and goosebumps formed on her small body. Her mouth parted slightly, caught between awe and curiosity.

"He really lost? I wish I could've seen that duel! O'Hara must be incredible at more than just making broomsticks—Daddy never loses—even in a Show of Hats!" Maddie exclaimed in one breath. "I watched all his old duels—they got boring after a while 'cause I always knew how the duel ended before it did—Daddy won in the same way in each one. I even thought, maybe, um, he only left recordings of duels he won. But Daddy tells me about his most epic fails all the time, like how he couldn't stop mommy from leaving him, so I don't think he'd do that."

"Why would my son tell his young daughter about why her mother left?" Asked the old man, incredulous as he grimaced, pinching his brow.

"He said it's so I wouldn't make the same mistakes one day," she shrugged. "I don't get it either, maybe it's 'cause he skipped a lot of details 'cause I'm 'still too young for the lot of it'? I don't even wanna know what that means. Grownups deal with a lot."

Maddock sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He enjoyed the smell of the sea and the feel of the breeze on his face whenever he had these regular talks with Maddness at their secret spot atop Castle Burnswitch's high ebony roof. But maybe he should've had more of them with his son when he was younger, too, set his head on straight about what he could tell a child.

"I recorded those old things after he graduated; that bitter defeat at O'Hara's hands pushed Madders to improve his craft. He was just starting to grow into the man you know today. I've never been prouder," Maddock said. "And what's this? You know what a Show of Hats is?"

"Uh-huh. It's when the solution an apprentice proposes to a problem, through spell craft, is, um, voided," she worded awkwardly, her brow scrunching. "Irrespective of the solution's correctness, in favor of, um, the scrutiny of subjective... stylistic... elements the apprentice employed, and whether, um... the apprentice broke from, um, conjunction."

"Convention, you mean, my word! You've memorized old Wonderhoff's textbook definition?" Maddock asked. "At least, that's what he had in mind when he thought up the Hatting System to shove ethics down the throats of his apprentices. But today, his system has wider reaching applications. You've been sneaking around the library's spell craft section again, haven't you, naughty little girl? Even watching your father's old competitive spell crafting duels on those dusty old VCRs up in the attic?"

"Am I in trouble?"

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"Of course not. No one should get in trouble for having the curiosity to direct their own learning."

"Really? Sucks that I can't direct myself into flying a broomstick, then," Maddie sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Grandpa, what does it mean to, um, flux my Mystia p-perpendicularly and at oblique angles to the broomstick's, um, permanent axial flux... in flight?"

"That's some heavy theoretical stuff there, kid. But it'll all make sense in time, and I dread the day it does, because you'll be zipping off every chance you get, leaving this old man alone with the seagulls."

"You always say that, Grandpa, always, but that day never arrives," said Maddie. "You and Daddy wouldn't even let me watch when you taught Maddox spell craft. He used to take me flying all the time before he started leaving for campaigns. He always kept his promise to come back safe, but he just... ignores me now—Oxie hates me." She shut her eyes.

"Your brother loves you more than you know. I know it's not the same anymore—we all miss him," the old man said, going down on one knee to meet her eyes, hand on her shoulder. "But he was a Private First Class. Maddox understood that as Spellbreakers we, especially, must enforce--"

"The Bureau's Rule of the First-born Sorcerer. I know you've said that like a bazillion times already, Lieutenant General Burnswitch," Maddie said, making a show of saluting as her eyes teared up. "But when Grandpa Maddock says it, I wanna believe him... I just wanna fly. Is it that bad if you showed me how?"

"Oh, Maddness, of course Grandpa Maddock means it," Maddock said, his arms wide open. "Come here."

The little girl jumped off the parapet into her grandfather's arms on the roof, bawling her eyes out.

"You promise?" Maddie asked in between sniffles.

"I promise," Maddock replied, his soft baritone calming her as he rubbed her back and she held him tight.

"Really?" she asked, looking up at him, olive skin, handsome sharp features aging well.

"Now, I wasn't going to tell you this until it was certain," he said. "But as you know, your grandmother and father are off-island. They're in the capital right now, Melinda's part of a jury for a rather interesting case. If deliberations pass in favor of the plaintiff, you'll soon be learning far more than just how to fly a broomstick."

"Really?! What's a jury and a... plaintiff?" Maddie jumped out of his arms, her face awash with excitement as she wiped the tears and snot off with her hands. Maddock smiled when he saw her beaming. The old man took out a white handkerchief from a pocket, wiping her face and hands as he said,

"A jury's a group of individuals selected to hear evidence in a case. If you're able to convince them you're right, they'll pass judgement in your favor. If not, they'll tear you apart and sell what's left for cheap at the nearest slammer. The plaintiff is the person or group that does the convincing."

"Grandma's hard to convince," Maddie said, a wry smile crossing her lips. "Should we be leaving this up to her?"

"Oh, trust me, I know," Maddock laughed. A blue flame engulfing his hands as he held hers and the handkerchief. "There, all clean again. Hang on to it."

Maddie sniffled as she took the hanky from her grandfather's hands, her eyes drawn to the ethereal blue flame that didn't burn her skin as it danced in her palms. Soon, the flame dissipated. Leaving a clean white hanky in cleaner hands.

Amazing, Maddie thought.

"But that's exactly why we should leave this up to Melinda," Maddock said. "Now, unlike your father, who loves his cloaks, I'm of an older generation that knows nothing gives you that feeling of control like a good old vintage broomstick does at clutch time. You know that, too, kid—you've got taste, wanting to be a collector. So how about we take one out for a spin? Just you and Grandpa, against the thieving seagulls? I'll let you steer."

Her eyes went wide—Maddox never let her steer. Before Maddie could respond, her grandfather swept her off her feet, and leaped off the high ebony roof.

"GRANDPA MADDOCK!" The little girl screamed, more out of excitement than fear. And as Maddie and her grandfather soared carefree through the sky, chasing seagulls, a heated deliberation was in session elsewhere.

***

Inside the hallowed monolithic halls of the Sorcerers' Assembly, chiseled centuries ago by the finest artisans the lords and ladies of sorcery could find, discussions on the future of spell craft were reaching a critical juncture.

"'If rocks could talk, and they can if you know how to listen, they too would call themselves sorcerers. Why then, do they not, yet we do?' When professor Atticus Wonderhoff posed that question in lecture room H1 one humid afternoon, I'll be honest. It went over my head. I enrolled for a course in ethical hexing, not philosophy, after all. All I wanted was that White Hat from him—I didn't care at all for the grand meaning of sorcery—maybe that's why I never got the hat," said Madders Burnswitch as the House of Representatives burst into laughter. He paused for a few moments, meeting his mother's stoic gaze, just a hint of a smile touching her lips. "But now that I'm older, I think old Wonderhoff was onto something. He was asking the right questions 300 years ago before any of us thought to listen and think. I can say with absolute confidence now, given the state of affairs in the Mohabi Desert, that what he taught my class that day, if we knew how to listen, wasn't philosophy. House of Representatives, we have thought long and hard and won and lost witty arguments, but gotten nowhere. Perhaps it is time we listened."

Silence. Not one of the 167 representatives drew breath. All eyes were on a tall, cloaked, handsome man, at a glance, in his late thirties, with olive skin and slick raven black hair. His sharp, hawkish hazel eyes darting around as if daring the nobility to challenge him. Madders locked eyes with his mother for a split second before nodding at the bailiff.

"House of Representatives, while many of you may not recognize her, I assure you this great sorcerer needs no introduction, but out of courtesy," Madders said as the large doors flew open. All necks craned, because in that instant, they all felt it. Something was stirring the air. The sorcerers could feel the Mystia tremble. "It's my honor and rare privilege to present to the House, granddaughter of the Founder himself, and Headmistress of Littlegiant's School of Applied Sorcery in Spell Craft... for all of its 113 Seeds—Elizabeth Baffleme."

***

To be continued.