Chapter 1

The Inevitable

Eliot

There was only darkness. His body was forgotten. His eyes were blind. His ears were deaf. He was asleep, but retained the consciousness to appreciate the reprieve. Nothing else existed. No expectations. No frustration. No fear. No boredom. No overactive mind. There was only darkness.

“Are you listening?” Cel’s voice cut through the bliss.

Eliot opened his eyes languidly. Instead of answering, he admired the sparse clouds in the haze of blue called the sky. He saw it everyday, but couldn’t get over the uncanny resemblance between clouds and pieces of cotton. Even the way they floated elicited a strange feeling. It wasn’t that they looked fake or wrong, they simply lacked the authenticity of everything else in the world.

The clouds weren’t the only ones deserving of scrutiny, either. The sky itself looked untrustworthy. It was fathomless. The blue hung in the boundary between intangibility and corporality. It felt like a void at times, as if anything flying straight up would be swallowed in a universe of never ending blue that couldn’t decide if it was real or not.

The effect was further exaggerated come night time, when the blue decided it didn’t want to be and the darkness took its place. He liked the darkness a lot more than the blue. Maybe it was the solidity of it, like it was sure that it wanted to exist and took the opportunities to be without second thought. Or maybe it was the fact that it shared its life with thousands of twinkling dots instead of selfishly taking everything for itself. There was also the fact that the blue flippantly decided it wanted to exist every morning and took away the sky for itself after promising that it would stay gone.

In reality, he knew he was applying human characteristics to mundane phenomena; anthropomorphism, he’d recently learned it was called. After showing more than a passing interest in the subject, his parents saved up to buy him an expensive book that introduced him to basic astronomy, the solar system, the idea of an atmosphere, and so on. He vividly remembered feeling like he was going to explode from excitement, literally jumping up and down with glee.

He’d spent the rest of the day reading the book from start to finish, it felt like the pinnacle of knowledge and entertainment. At least, until he read it for the twenty-third time and could literally recite it from memory. When the grandeur wore off, he decided he liked the world better when blue was the villain and darkness fought to exist every night.

“Hello? I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to pay attention. It’s kind of important.”

Eliot turned his head to glower at Cel. The boy was fifteen, a year younger than Eliot, but he looked years older. Most of it could be attributed to his physique of lean muscle, out-of-place bronze skin, and piercing amber eyes. The only traces of his youth were his below average height, unblemished—almost baby-ish face, and wavy mess of vibrant, fiery red hair. He also wore a simple linen tunic with a belt and leggings.

Aside from their identical clothing, Eliot was his opposite in almost every regard. He was sickly pale, lanky, and looked freakishly tall despite only being slightly taller than average. Silky bone-white hair completed his albino look too well for his liking, and his near-black coffee brown eyes didn’t add a helpful contrast.

Their hair colors alone made them stick out of the usual browns, blacks, and blondes, but their diametric skin colors and heights made them a sight to behold. It was lucky they lived in a small town on the edge of the empire, with a strong sense of community, else they would have been gawked at without end.

They were currently lying on a sharply inclined hill. Eliot with his elbows out and fingers laced under his head. Cel with his left hand raised, studying his nails against the blue backdrop.

Cel countered his irritation with a cheery smile, making Eliot turn away with an annoyed hum.

From birth, Eliot had a talent for reading people. He’d always been proficient in anything remotely social, but reading people—using subtle clues to infer how someone felt or what they were thinking—he was a master of. With practice, he applied that external talent internally to master acting, which he then used to master every facet of social interaction as a whole.

Cel was the exception. Cel was the first and, so far, one of two people he was originally perplexed by. He had to work to be able to read Cel. It just so happened that Cel was also the only person that could see through his acting.

Somehow, Cel could always tell when he was acting and what he truly felt. Eliot had absolutely no idea how. When acting, he used the same mannerisms, speech patterns, and tells he would use if he genuinely felt that way; he was positive there was no difference. But, Cel always knew how he felt. At times, he also knew the volume of Eliot’s feelings, exactly how much he could get away with pushing his buttons, and—the most important part, in Eliot’s opinion—how to do it in good taste.

Though he acted like that annoyed him, he liked being read more than he would ever admit. And, since they were good friends, along with his family, Cel was the only person he avoided reading. It was more fun that way.

Knowing it wouldn’t do any good, he turned off his anger. Using a sigh to transition into a smile, he said, “Sorry, I didn’t hear a word.”

Rolling his eyes, Cel shared, “I heard Matthew say there was a new ghost in the graveyard.”

“A day after the last one? The chances of that have to be near zero.”

“And,” Cel prompted, knowing Eliot would like it, “I also heard him swear that it was a mage.”

“Really?” he drawled, a genuine smile forming on his face

“Yup, and the best part is, because of the danger, the guard is giving out a reward of twenty-two silvers,” Cel added, nearly smug.

Eliot closed his eyes again to think it over. He was going to do it, that wasn’t up to question. Aside from being too interesting to pass up, twenty two silvers was roughly the average pay of a year’s worth of labor in the Town of Flora. Skilled labor, at that: carpentry, farming, making clothing.

He was considering whether he should bide his time or take initiative. The open reward was a half hearted summons to him specifically. He was the only person in the Town of Flora with Mana Sensitivity, and usually dealt with spirits of his own accord. If he ignored it, the Guard would seek him out sooner or later, at which point he could bargain for a higher reward.

The problem lay in the fact that spirits are hard to deal with at the best of times, and if he waited, he could be artificially increasing the difficulty beyond something he could handle.

Spirits were mana facsimiles of deceased beings, animated by some intense emotion—usually a regret—at the time of a being’s death. Because of this, they had fractured memories and precarious mental states. Spirits dissipate over time as the mana making them up gradually assimilates with the ambient mana; however, the longer a spirit is left tortured by whatever animated it, the more its mental state declines. Insanity isn’t just a possibility, it’s extremely likely. In order to prevent that from happening, a spirit needs to either see its regret resolved or come to terms with the way things are, and move on.

A spirit passing on without outside intervention was pretty much impossible, since nine times out of ten a spirit’s death is due to foul play or some dreadful circumstance.

Unfortunately, though a spirit is enough concentrated mana to be seen by anyone, the spirit itself is estranged from the physical plane. As spiritual beings comprised entirely of sapient mana, they can only perceive and interact with things on the spiritual plane. Communication that relies on physical mediums, such as regular speech, is unperceivable to a spirit. And a spirit’s cries are similarly mute to anyone Mana Ignorant. To an average person, a spirit was a dolorious thing to be ignored.

Someone with Mana Sensitivity, however, was capable of perceiving mana and the spiritual plane. Through this sensitivity, with some practice, they were also capable of manipulating mana, thereby being able to communicate with spirits and help them pass on.

“We’ll go once the sun sets,” he voiced aloud. Regardless of the danger or difficulty, he had a good relationship with the Guard he didn’t want tarnished over a few extra silvers.

Looking up to see the sun had almosted surpassed the large building on the crest of the hill, giving them shade, Cel said, “It’s getting a lot colder, so the sun’ll set in five hours, tops. Why not go now?”

“I recently learned that spirits and spiritual-aligned creatures prefer night. I figure we should take advantage of anything if we’re going to be talking to a mage,” Eliot explained.

“That’s probably a sound idea,” Cel agreed.

Mages had a stigma for being aloof and ill tempered shut-ins, especially the older and more powerful they are. For an average person, getting on a mage’s nerves is a life ending mistake—that was the putative outcome in the Town of Flora, at least. Eliot had never met a mage before, and since he didn't know any magic himself, he was practically the same as an average person. With nothing else to go on, stereotypes were valid first-order approximations.

Despite his circumspect attitude, the thought of meeting a mage filled him with fantastical glee and consumed his thoughts the entire rest of the afternoon. Of course, meeting a mage by itself was sure to be an interesting experience, but he was more fixated on the chance that he might undergo a Spiritual Awakening.

A Spiritual Awakening was basically a mandatory jump-start for the spiritual senses. Although he was able to display some signs of Spiritual Sensitivity from birth, he was technically in a state of Inchoate Sensitivity, where his spiritual inclinations would forever remain subdued. It was often compared to a spiritual puberty; before puberty, muscles aren’t prevalent or very encouraged to grow, but after it they’re spurred into rapid growth of size, density, and strength. A Spiritual Awakening functioned exactly the same, simply for mana sensitivity and manipulation instead of muscles.

The thing was, from what he knew, it wasn’t usually all too difficult to spark a Spiritual Awakening. In more populated settlements, children showing signs of Inchoate Sensitivity are sent to fully-fledged mages for a shock strong enough to catalyze an awakening, however it’s been recorded that, depending on the individual, a myriad of stressful situations, even completely non-spiritual in nature, could possibly cause an awakening. And, if all else fails, a sufficient amount of time practicing would also lead to an awakening, there were even some studies that showed mages awakened through practice had stronger sensitivity, in the end.

Eliot felt those studies were dubious, though. His parents were the ones that told him that last bit, and he wouldn’t put it past them to lie so he would focus on practice.

Unfortunately, after sixteen years of practice, throwing himself into dangerous situations, and all sorts of desperate attempts, Eliot’s sensitivity refused to awaken. If he played his cards right, he could convince the mage to force a Spiritual Awakening and finally take the next steps towards becoming a mage himself. With or without his parent’s blessing.

Five restless hours later, Eliot and Cel marched down the south-east road. Unlike most villages and towns, their roads weren’t simple trails flattened over decades of people walking along them, the town wasn’t old enough for that to be possible, anyway. Most of their roads were planned out and kept sheared of grass or flora, which grew abound throughout the rest of the town and its surroundings. Everyone had at least a few natural patches of flowers, vines up their walls, or a tree of some kind for decoration, usually they had all three. It was a popular pastime of most of the farmers to make breathtaking floral arrangements and compete against each other with the entire town as judges.

The rest of the roads, including the one they were walking on, were in the process of being dug out in preparation for paving. There were a great deal of complaints against transitioning towards stone among the close-knit populace, but the mayor assured everyone that it was impossible to qualify for city-ship without it, and if their population kept growing at the rate it was, they would need the benefits of being a city.

Eliot and Cel set a leisurely pace. They received and exchanged greetings with everyone they passed, pausing for a short conversation if need be. By the time darkness wrested control of the sky, they made it to the base of the diminutive mesa where the graveyard was built on, equipped with the good wishes and thanks of their townspeople.

Eliot allowed himself a momentary smirk of disdain at the thought. It was almost too easy to be showered in heartfelt good will. But of course it was. Part of it was that he and Cel had a track record for helping around town, mostly tiny favors, small scale problems the Guard didn’t have time for, and supernatural matters only Eliot could solve.

But, the real reason was, to live the life they did, they had to be grateful for everything. The people of the Town of Flora were some of the happiest people on the Two Continents. They celebrated every miniscule victory. Every day the world didn’t brutally rip them and their families in two is a blessing. Every second they are alive is something to be grateful for. When they do suffer, which happens often, they band together and weather the storm as a community. No matter how bleak the situation, they lean on each other and always keep hope alive in their hearts.

But Eliot could see it for what it really was: a necessity. An adaptation to survive their lives without being absolutely miserable. A mindset that allows them to be happy and pass whatever they can to the next generation. Unfortunately, it seems he was the only one who didn’t get the memo. He was the only one that couldn’t shake the feeling that adapting that mindset was giving up. He was the only one who saw that life could be so much better.

If only his parents allowed him to practice magic by himself instead of insisting they go plunging into the depths of debt to send him to an overpriced academy where he could learn it ‘properly’. Of course, he knew his parents didn’t care about him learning magic the ‘proper’ way, they just wanted him to learn it the safe way. But acknowledging that made it hard to be mad about it, not for lack of trying.

By the time he was done following that train of thought for the millionth time, they arrived at the graveyard’s gate. Along with being built on a low and modest mesa, the graveyard had polished, simple stone walls to give the dead privacy. From visiting the graveyard in his personal time, usually in the dead of night, Eliot knew the gate was never locked.

Putting a hand on the entrance, he looked to Cel and asked, “Ready?”

Eliot had promised himself day one he would try not to read too much into Cel’s personality so that their current dynamic didn’t change. However, as much as he tried not to read him, some of it was more second nature than breathing, and after spending years as friends it was impossible not to notice a few of his tells. Setting his jaw, intensifying his gaze, clenching and unclenching his fists was quintessential nervous Cel. He looked as if he were preparing for a fist fight, which made perfect sense given he was an orphan who had to fend for himself his entire life.

“Remember the back up plan?” Cel queried.

Eliot took his hand off the gate, snapped his fingers, and half pointed with his finger to accent his words. “When it starts throwing around fireballs, duck and roll,” he said as if reciting a commonly held mantra.

Cel cracked a smile, but gave him a look that said he expected a serious answer.

Eliot adopted a look of his own and complained, “I was the one who made the plan. I couldn’t forget it if I tried!”

He meant his words more than Cel knew. One of his many innate talents was a near perfect memory—not eidetic, but close enough. And, because he fully expected to know everything about everything one day, he took it a step further. He developed a memory technique early in his life that made it so that if he really wanted to remember something, his recollection would be nigh photographic.

“Trying to forget something is counterintuitive, but if anyone could, it would be you,” asserted Cel.

Eliot let out a thespian sigh, knowing that Cel knew how much he hated having to repeat himself. He gestured to the wooden bucket his irritating friend held. “If it looks like it’s about to, or is casting a spell, you’ll throw water on it and we scatter. The water and the spirit occupying the same space should cause the physical to temporarily override the projection of the spiritual. Best outcome: it interferes with the casting and stops the spell entirely. At the least, it’ll give us precious seconds,” he elucidated, purposefully giving a long-winded explanation.

“Good,” Cel nodded sagely. “We may proceed,” he said with a mock bow.

Eliot rolled his eyes and pushed open the gates. He strode forward with exaggerated informality.

The graveyard was designed as a layered square, intended to be a mix of over-run vegetation and man-made order. It was also incredibly large, amounting to four acres in total area. In its center, where the graves were, grew a verdant field of kaleidoscopic flowers, swallowing the bottom quarter of the neat rows of gravestones. It was tradition to plant the deceased’s favorite plant on top of their grave. Predictably, every grave had some colorful, eye-catching flower. In the beginning, an effort was made to keep the flowers trimmed for orderly walkways, but it was quickly abandoned when the flowers grew back the morning after any attempt.

The flowers and graves formed a perfect square, boxed in on every side by rectangular rows of teal colored grass, that accounted for most of the graveyard’s space. Boxing the grass in grew tulip trees that lined the walls perfectly equidistant from each other. Looking at it from outside, the massive trees made it appear as if the graveyard was a miniature, private forest closed off by tall stone walls.

The blue grass, as everyone called it, was there when the town was first founded and the reason they made the graveyard on the small mesa. Interestingly, the blue grass was the reason that the flowers grew in a perfect box. The growth of any plant, with trees being one of the few exceptions, was completely halted wherever the grass grew, but the grass didn’t grow invasively.

Its growth patterns were such that it could grow directly beside any plant without either side suffering, and seemingly without spreading. However, if it was cut, burned, or even salted, it would grow back in the same place within days. The only ways they knew to keep it from growing back were to excavate the dirt a meter deep or plant something else in its place before it grew back.

Taking in the familiar sight, Eliot could feel his mana sensitivity bristle from the first step inside. “Hold on,” he told Cel, closing his eyes with a deep breath in.

In Eliot’s experience, there were only two ways that someone with mana sensitivity was different from someone without. The first, and most obvious, was that his five senses picked up on mana. It was all around, at all times in the form of ambient mana—naturally occurring, unspecialized mana dispersed throughout the atmosphere like air—and it permeated every living being.

The second way he found was that he was able to feel mana in an indefinite field around him. For lack of a better term in his limited knowledge, he referred to it as his kinesthetic sensitivity. None of the books he had on magic referenced it in any capacity.

At first, he thought it was a type of sixth sense, however the more he experimented the more it seemed connected to his spiritual sense of touch. Whenever he trained his touch, his kinesthetic sensitivity improved, and vice versa. It was clear to him that it was some kind of extension of somatosensation instead of a ‘sixth sense’. Especially since it’s common to pick up on physical stimuli the same way, like being able to sense someone enter the same room even without hearing or seeing them, or being able to feel something watching.

It was his kinesthetic sensitivity that caused him to stop. Immediately after casting his full focus on it, a shiver of tingles raced up his spine. The spirit’s mana was the most concentrated, galvanizing thing he’d ever felt. It roared and shifted with raw power and energy. His mana might as well have been inert in comparison.

The best part was, “I think it’s leading us towards it. The mana forms a trail leading north-east. As far as I can tell, this has to be intentional, there’s no other reason the spirit would have its mana just out like this.”

“Could it be a trap?” Cel asked immediately after.

“Its mana is awesome,” gushed Elioted, “If that’s any indication, it wouldn’t need a trap. Give me a few minutes, I wanna try something.”

Cel shifted into a slightly more relaxed posture, lessening his grip on the bucket. “It’s not like the spirit can go anywhere . . . right? Eliot?” He sighed, seeing Eliot’s complete and utter concentration, it was obvious he wouldn’t get an answer.

Eliot worked on shutting out every and all distractions. One by one, he ignored his other senses, leaving only sight and kinesthetic sensitivity while glaring at the mana intensely.

Mana sensitivity—and by extension, mana manipulation—was like breathing. Technically, breathing was flexing and unflexing the diaphragm, however when breathing it’s never thought of or felt in terms of contracting the diaphragm, it’s always in terms of breathing in and out. Mana sensitivity was exactly the same, but with five different analogous muscles for each of his five senses and breathing being the sensory input of his spiritual senses.

Eliot endeavored on a frustrating, and frankly awkward, process of stretching his metaphorical spiritual muscles until he found the one relating to sight. Eventually, while squinting up at the mana, a vague outline coalesced in his vision. He could just make out the swirling undulations of its shape, like a hundred differently faced currents all crashing and grappling for dominance.

Suddenly, feeling his eyes focusing, the mana bloomed to life. Everything he’d imagined previously was completely recontextualized. The mana looked like a mythical and serene seafoam green river. What he thought were clashing currents was the single placid river flowing around, over, or under invisible obstacles. What he thought was a violent gaseous substance was liquid that looked dense enough to be gel but glided through space as if ethereal. It streamed through the air like an illusion and glittered with a surreal brilliance.

For the first time in his life, Eliot understood what it meant for something to take his breath away. “I wish you could see this,” he whispered to Cel in veneration. “It’s . . . I,” he scoffed softly, shaking his head, “I could study poetry for a thousand years and not properly communicate its beauty.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Cel said, readjusting the bucket. “If it’s got you like that, it must be something.”

Eliot walked forward in a trance, fully savoring its splendor with stars in his eyes. At the same time, however, the unflappable observer in the back of his mind dissected what its qualities entailed for their encounter.

Everybeing’s mana starts off neutral gray and gaseous, almost wispy. From what he’s learned, the more liquid its consistency and the more diaphanous, the denser and purer the mana. It was very likely a single drop of the spirit’s mana had enough power in it to rival Eliot’s entire mana storm, and it felt to him like it had an entire ocean’s worth.

The farther away the mana is, the more practiced the owner has to be to control it, especially with any semblance of finesse. At a rough estimate, the large concentration of mana he assumed was the spirit, was seventy paces from the entrance.

A mage’s mana remains neutral gray regardless of nearly every circumstance until the mage goes through a process known as Specialization. Once a threshold in body, spirit, and soul is reached, a mage can specialize their mana for a specific purpose, whether that be a vocation, school of magic, element, or anything loosely magic related. After specializing, the mana will change color to reflect the specialization. As a rule, the lighter and more naturally occurring the color, the more likely the specialized mage is of good-alignment.

All of those things put together meant it was very likely the spirit they were about to meet was powerful beyond their wildest dreams. Since magic didn’t require any actual physical movement, the spirit could probably obliterate them in an instant with a thought. No pathetic bucket of water was going to save them. After coming to that conclusion, Eliot shifted gears. He was going to have to take this seriously.

They caught sight of it shortly after. Already, Eliot could feel in his gut that this wasn’t a normal spirit, nor would this be a normal encounter.

The spirit was the same effervescent seafoam green as the rest of its mana, only more concentrated and less see-through. Its features, despite being limited in color expression to a single shade of green, were clearly discernible, as if purposefully crafted.

It looked mostly like a healthy man of roughly mid-fifties. Its face had newborn crow’s feet and just developing wrinkles in all the right places. Thin, close cropped hair and a goatee grew in place of the bald head and flowing beard he’d expected. Its general body, from what he could get of its body shape under the baggy robe it wore, seemed to be even younger and healthier, on par with someone in their late twenties. It was by far the most detailed spirit he’d ever seen.

Eliot put his hand in front of Cel and stopped. “I should talk to it alone,” he said.

“I may not have been able to see the full extent, but I can see that,” Cel said, thrusting his hand in the spirit’s direction. “That’s not a normal spirit, is it?”

“No. Honestly, from the mana alone, it might be some sort of Archmage. The only evidence I have that it won’t kill us is the color of its mana. Green is supposed to mean good, but I’d rather not bet your life on it,” Eliot admitted.

“You expect me to let you bet your life on it?” Cel argued.

Truthfully, Eliot was delighted to risk his life for the possibility of becoming a mage, but he knew Cel wouldn’t respond well to that argument.

“Look, I’m not even sure if the bucket will do anything,” he confessed further. “I didn’t base it on any facts, I came up with it on my own. It’s nothing but a wild conjecture that I thought made sense. There’s no point in risking two lives on this.”

“Then, let’s leave it until it disappears on its own,” Cel tried

Eliot shook his head. “That’s not an option. With mana like that, I have no idea how long that would take, years possibly. And I can’t guarantee that it doesn’t have or at least won’t figure out a way to move if it really wanted to. And even if it couldn’t move, I’m sure it has plenty of spells that can level the town from a large distance.”

“Now you have to take me with you,” Cel demanded, arms crossed.

“And why’s that?” Eliot asked, crossing his own arms.

“Based on what you just said, we’re assuming that, one way or another, it could destroy the town if it wanted to. We’re debating on whether or not I should go with you to speak to it because it might be hostile.

“If it isn’t hostile, none of this matters. If it is hostile, none of this matters still because, given our assumptions, the best case scenario is that I die a little bit after you do, then the entire village. The only thing that changes is if I die with you or after watching you get murdered,” Cel huffed.

Eliot blinked in shock for a few seconds before breaking out into a huge smile. “Did you just beat me in a logical debate? What is it, the first one in four years?”

Cel shrugged nonchalantly in an attempt to cover up the obvious pride on his face. “You’re off your game today,” he dismissed.

Eliot took a deep breath and said, “Seriously, though. The conclusion you came to only applies if the spirit does anything. As far as I can tell, it’s waiting for someone to find it. So, if it is hostile, the best move may be for you to go back to town and evacuate everyone before I talk to it.”

“That would be useless. It’s late at night, no one would listen to me,” Cel refuted.

“Everyone at the orphanage and my family might. You could still get them and yourself somewhere safe.”

“I could survive the journey to Carton by myself, but not with fourteen people, we’d get eaten by raptors. And if we did make it, we would have nowhere to go and very little money. I’m going with you,” Cel maintained resolutely.

Eliot nodded, then turned his attention back to the spirit, frowning in consternation and slight annoyance. His own life didn’t mean much, but having to worry about Cel’s life would limit the amount of moves he could make.

As they approached within speaking distance, he made sure to check he had his Mage Armor formed. Mage Armor was a technique utilized by mages since the beginning of time to compensate for their usually weak physical constitutions. It worked by storing mana in a special area in the spiritual body’s outline that results in automatic and instant transfer of mana to the physical plane to block physical blows, momentarily flashing into being around the physical body.

It mattered in this situation because without it the part of the body that extended into the spiritual plane—known as the Spiritual body—was mostly invisible, even on the spiritual plane, and the spirit wouldn’t be able to see any human features. Mage Armor fixed the problem without additional hassle by virtue of it coating his human shape.

The spirit perked up, floating a few centimeters higher, as it caught sight of them and spoke first,“Greetings, my name is—was Karl Favesh. As you can see, I was a mage specialized as a druid.” It’s voice was soft and kind, its smile inviting. Eliot and Cel exchanged a relieved glance, the tension leaving them. All the fanfare almost felt silly now.

“Greetings, I am Eliot Reileus, a simple peasant,” he introduced himself with a polite bow. “I do not mean to offend, but I do hope that one such as yourself recognizes the position you are in.”

“Yes. I’m aware that I’m a spirit, if that is what you mean,” it said.

“You have my deepest—”

“You don’t need to placate me, or talk so formally,” it interrupted. “I helped my fair share of spirits in my time. I know the drill.”

“In that case,” Eliot fully lifted his head to look the spirit in the eyes, “What do you remember of your time alive?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. I taught at the Arcane Academy of Everveil, of that I’m certain. However, everything else is . . . fragmented. I believe I was a prominent figure, and I must have lived in Everveil. Where am I now?”

“The Town of Flora, it’s the farthest out settlement on the south-western edge of the Crucible Empire,” then added, “If I have my maps correct.”

“I . . . remember taking some interest in your settlement. I hoped to one day recreate what about the land made plant life and vegetation grow so heartily,” the spirit thought out loud.

“That’s us,” Eliot confirmed cheerily. “Do you remember anything else? Anything pertaining to why you’re a spirit, or how you ended up in our graveyard?”

The spirit went silent for a few moments before asking, “How long have you been working on your Mage Armor?”

“I figured it out a year ago,” Eliot answered immediately, a part of him genuinely flipping out that the mage took interest.

“Figured it out, not learned or was taught?”

“Well, I did read it mentioned a few times, otherwise I wouldn’t have thought to try making armor out of mana,” he admitted.

“It’s already better than the average specialized mage’s,” it praised, making Eliot surge with pride. “How’s your mana manipulation?” it inquired next.

“Do you mean my shaping?” he wanted clarified.

“No, I would have said so if I did. How is your mana manipulation,” it stressed.

“I…” Eliot looked at Cel, who nodded reassuringly. “I don’t know the difference.”

Instead of lashing out, like he half expected, it took a breath and proceeded to explain in a smooth, perfectly paced, miniature lecture.

“Shaping ability, or shaping skills as they’re sometimes called, is a small part of mana manipulation that refers to how well a being can shape their mana into specific shapes and runes. Mana manipulation encompasses a being’s general ability to manipulate their mana. How fast the mana responds, the speed at which the mana moves, the ease at which it conforms to a being’s intentions, the range of qualities it can posses, how easily and fast it forms Mage Armor, and the integrity and qualities of said Mage Armor, to list a few examples.”

Eliot momentarily failed to suppress a giddy smile. Trying to understand the full scope of what all of that meant took more mental resources than he’d used in the entire month.

“In that case,” some emotion leaking into his voice, “I stopped being able to safely test the integrity of my Mage Armor four months ago, the most it’s been able to withstand is two, what I think, were full force blows from our Guard captain. I don’t know if there’s a difference, but the fastest I’ve been able to form it after it shatters is two point three four seconds—which is four months olds since I stopped being able to test it—and the fastest I’ve been able to reform it is one point two two seconds. The fastest I’ve been able to move my mana it is about two and a half of my fathoms per second, and—”

“That’s enough, thank you,” the spirit cut him off, it’s voice authoritative but without gaining an edge. “Which instrument did you use to get those precise times?”

“I didn’t use any instruments. We have sand glasses, but those are inaccurate and hard to use.”

“If you didn’t use any tool, then assuming you weren’t guessing, spare no detail of your method,” it told him, stroking its chin out of intrigue.

Eliot lit up like a light bulb, he’d been dying to explain it to someone other than Cel or his parents who would understand.

Copiously gesticulating, he launched into his story, “Alright, so, there’s a bunch of this waxy looking mineral south-west of the town. I got bored one day and started messing with it—I found out that giving it some mana made it vibrate really fast. Then, I thought to myself, hey nothing else I can find reacts to mana like that does, let’s see how much time I can kill messing with this.

“Naturally, the first thing I did was try to count the rate that it vibrated. It was impossible to do it with regular sense of touch, so I tried feeling it through my mana. It was really difficult at first, but since it gave me an opportunity to hone my mana sensitivity and it let me practice discharging and recharging my mana storm, I practiced it every second of freetime I had.

“Eventually, I got really good at it, and I would sit counting until I lost concentration and missed a beat; the highest I ever got to was two hundred million, one hundred seventy nine thousand, one hundred eighty. After one of my longer practices, I thought about how much time had passed while I was practicing. I know I probably should have realized it sooner, but that was when it really occurred to me that the rate of vibration was consistent!

“I’d been using the number I reached to tell the general length of my practice the entire time and I knew it was consistent, but I didn’t fully understand what that meant or that I could apply it to the timekeeping measurements we already have. So, I borrowed as many minute glasses as I could and calculated that one minute was one million, nine hundred sixty six thousand, eighty vibrations. From there, I simply multiplied and divided by sixty to get one hundred seventeen million, nine hundred sixty four thousand, eight hundred vibrations for an hour, and thirty two thousand, seven hundred sixty eight vibrations for a second.”

Deciding he would show off a little, he ended with, “From all that time practicing, I memorized the pattern of the vibration and always count it in the back of my head.” He snapped his fingers as he said, “For example, from when we first started talking to right now, four minutes and five point two nine seconds have passed.”

Cel started clapping, knowing how passionate Eliot got over something like this. Eliot nodded his head and mouthed thank you, grinning from ear to ear. He felt the urge to bow, but decided that would be over the top.

“Applause is well deserved, I would as well if I could—that was incredible,” the spirit verbally applauded. “Where did you learn the arithmetic you needed to do all of that?”

“My parents used to tutor nobles in reading, writing, and math,” he answered, trying and failing not to sound like he was bragging on their behalf.

“But not history or science?” the spirit questioned.

“I suppose not,” Eliot shrugged.

“I’ve recalled why I’m here, now. You’ll do,” it said, a small smile forming on its face.

Eliot tried not to feel disheartened now that the magic talk was over, and reminded himself that he was primarily here to help Karl Favesh pass on. “I’ve never met a spirit that knows exactly what’s binding it to this plane. Are you sure you figured it out?”

“I’m certain. The one thing I haven’t been able to do in all my life is find a suitable discipulus. From the feats you’ve told me, all before a Spiritual Awakening, it’s clear your mana sensitivity is a high magnitude, and you’ve shown me natural intellectual, talent, and curiosity. You’re exactly what I was looking for,” it chuckled. “Have you learned any spells, runes, even?”

From what he knew, discipulus just meant direct disciple. The fact that an archmage would even consider taking him on as an apprentice made every boring hour he spent training his sensitivity in any way worth it.

“Just to make sure I have this right,” Eliot prefaced, “Runes are pictographic symbols that specify certain variables in a spell, which is just a string of runes that put the specifics of the spell together, right?”

“No, that is an incomplete definition of what runes and spells are. I know that you’re eager, another desirable quality, however you’ll learn about them soon enough. For now, your common sense should suffice for you to come up with an answer.”

“No, then, none at all,” he answered with a trace of bitterness.

The spirit nodded, suddenly manipulating its mana into symbols in the air in front of it. Eliot immediately moved to reassured Cel, only to find him casually leaning to one side and swinging the bucket back and forth leisurely.

“I can still tell the general flow of the conversation, at least,” he said. “Also, I can read its lips.”

Eliot opened his mouth to comment on that before reassessing his priorities and snapping his attention to the runes of the spell being cast. As far as he knew, learning a spell was as simple as memorizing the shape and order of the runes, then feeding them enough mana to engrave on reality, which is casually referred to as casting the spell.

Surging with radiant green mana, the runes suddenly winked out, and springing from the midpoint, a small portal, just big enough to fit a fist through, swirled into existence. The spirit pulled from the other side what looked like a wax sealed envelope, the portal closing immediately after.

The spirit held it out for Eliot. After taking it and studying the seal, he asked, “What is this?”

“A letter of recommendation to the Arcane Academy of Everveil.”

His posture snapped stiff and he shoved the envelope out in his cupped hands as if the slightest pressure would unravel it. The Arcane Academy of Everveil was widely known as the most prestigious magic school on the Two Continents. With a letter of recommendation, he could attend for no cost whatsoever. “Why are you giving this to me?” he whispered in disbelief.

“Enabling you to learn through the academy, I could consider as teaching you indirectly. Despite how it may seem, I’m not long for this world. I had to expend a considerable amount of will to make it this far. This is the only viable option.”

Breathless, Eliot confessed, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You shouldn’t be grateful just yet. Merely accepting that letter isn’t the extent of your role,” admonished the spirit.

Eliot suppressed his emotions and regained his professional demeanor. “What do you need?”

The spirit seemed to do the same. Its cordial expression hardened and the sharp quality that was absent in its voice thus far rose to the forefront. “As much as I would like to, I can’t fully rest easy trusting your word alone. You must pledge yourself to a Mana Contract.”

It’s name was straightforward, but Eliot decided to clarify, “What is a Mana Contract, exactly?”

“A Mana Contract is a binding agreement between two beings. You would be pledging to follow the terms and offering up a detriment to your mana if you transgress.

“Before you make up your mind, you should know, if you break your pledge to me, the detriment will not be light. Your mana will become poison for your bodies. You will die a slow and painful death, either to mana fatigue or your own mana dissolving you from the inside. Do you still wish to continue?”

“I do,” Eliot agreed without skipping a beat.

Its mana turned turbulent. It started spiraling around the two of them like a blazing hurricane. Without focusing his sensitivity, he could smell fresh greenery seeped in ozone and hear strident cracking. Its voice grew booming to speak over the rush of wind that threw his hair in every direction. “Eliot Reileus, You Shall Swear To Always And Forever Strive Your Utmost In Your Inexorable Pursuit Of Arcane Mastery, And As You Rise To Hold True Power In Your Grasp, You Shall Swear To Never Use Your Power For The Sake Of Evil! Do you agree to these terms?”

Eliot had to suppress the urge to complain. That was it? All this fanfare for that? He was already planning to become the best mage he could possibly be. And it’s not like he was going to go around killing people.

“Yes, I agree!” he confirmed without reservation. The moment he spoke the words, he felt a weight settle on his mana, swiftly sinking from his perception.

The spirit softened somewhat as it glided within arm’s reach. It spoke in a hushed tone that Eliot had to strain his ears to hear. “I couldn’t force you to succeed me, but as things become clear to you, I do hope you’ll choose to uptake my mantle. Regardless, you should know that going to the Metropolis bearing the title of my discipulus and wielding the talent you’ve been gifted, will see you involved whether you like it or not.”

As it said this, it reached out with a hand. He could visibly see the spirit dim as a blinding golden light collected in its palm. Lightly touching Eliot’s temple, it pressed the light into the middle of his forehead. He felt the light embed itself within him, its reach rushing through his nerves to his fingertips like a pulse, before cementing itself and going dormant.

Suddenly, the spirit’s mana skewed towards itself like a whirlpool, filling its shape and growing increasingly brighter by the second. Eliot planted his feet against the tide and shielded his face as the spirit rose higher.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Farwell, Child of Blight.”

As the last of its mana gathered, the light reached an effulgent crescendo. For a moment, it turned night to day, then abruptly blinked out. Eliot’s ears rang in the silence and his vision filled with dots. The air that seemed to buzz with energy fell numbingly still. Tasting blood in his mouth, he sucked in air through clenched teeth and waited out the sensory overload.

“Eliot? Are you ok?” Cel asked, stumbling drunkenly into view, a minute later.

“I’m getting there. That was intense,” he chuckled.

His vision finally cleared as Cel stepped close and asked, “Did I get that right? Is that a letter of recommendation to a magic academy?” He gestured to the nearly forgotten envelope clutched in Eliot’s hands.

“Yeah, it is.”

Still off-balance, Cel grabbed his shoulders and said, “You’re going to be a mage.”

The surreal elation he felt earlier resurfaced with a vengeance. His face slowly stretched into a beaming grin as it fully dawned on him. “I’m going to be a mage,” he realized.

“You’re going to be a mage!”

“I’m going to be a mage!”

They threw their hands in the air and screamed their lungs out. A voice in his head wouldn’t shut up about how it was probably not a good idea to make it sound like they were being murdered in the dead of night, but he didn’t let it stop him.

Even after minutes of exuberant celebration, Eliot was bursting at the seams. He felt like he had enough energy to sprint the continental distance to Everveil in one mad dash. Soon enough, he started throwing his mana around like a manifestation of his excitement. As soon as it left his spiritual body, it started fizzling out, shooting from his hands and dispersing in the ambient mana like scintillating steam.

Becoming a mage to study magic and the sciences was everything he’s ever wanted. And he’d literally been handed it by an Archmage that seemingly landed in his town by pure chance. Eliot refused to belive in something as idiotic as fate, but considering the situation, it was hard not to be wrapped up in a feeling of something greater.

Eventually, rashly spewing mana left his mana storm nearly spent, and he forced himself to calm down to a manageable level.

Seeing he was done celebrating, Cel asked, “So, disregarding difficulty or level, what kind of spell do you want to learn first?”

“The same ones everyone would: fireball, fly, and invisibility, obviously!” Eliot answered, counting them off on his fingers.

“Ok, after those three what would you want to learn?” Cel added.

Eliot took time to consider, absently biting his lip while he did. Except, nothing he did was subconscious anymore. The only habit he kept was constantly assessing himself, what he was doing, and if he should be doing it. More accurately, he was allowing himself to bite his lip in an absent manner.

“Now that you mention it, I’ve never actively thought about the specific spells I would learn. Teleportation would be cool.” He snapped his fingers, “Oh, and being able to summon a magic sword made out of fire or something would be nice.”

“You with a sword?” Cel snorted, “You do know there are easier ways to completely and utterly embarrass yourself, right?”

“Alright, maybe I wouldn’t do a sword, I’d do something easier, like a spear,” he admitted with his palms out defensively. He shifted to crossing his arms and said, “You know what? I would add a spell to my list for some sort of magical automaton that could wield it for me. It would be awesome, I would study all sorts of sword styles to give it and its reaction time would be instant.”

Cel shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know about that. I feel if that was possible, someone else would have done it, and no regular flesh and blood sapient being would ever pick up a sword again.”

“That is why we experiment. We don’t know if it’s possible until someone tries!”

“You’ve gone from being a huge pessimist to being a total optimist, I wish this happened sooner,” Cel observed with a smirk.

“I’m not being optimistic,” the way he spoke the word dripped with disdain, “I’m still being completely objective. It’s just that anything is possible with magic and science.”

“Have you ever heard a non-optimist say ‘anything is possible’?” Cel posed with a raised brow.

Eliot held his head in his hands and dramatically mocked, “Dear gods! What have I turned into?” Reassuming his jovial expression with a chuckle, he clarified, “Seriously, though. The mundane world is Abysally limited. Mana is literally everywhere. Being Mana Ignorant is like being blind and deaf but thinking you’re experiencing the world in its entirety. You have no idea what you’re missing out on. Once you throw Mana Sensitivity and magic into the mix, ‘anything is possible’ is a perfectly factual statement.”

“Alright. Thanks for pain-stakingly explaining how your life is going to be so much better than mine and everyone else's,” Cel drawled sarcastically.

Eliot rolled his eyes. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Uh-huh,” Cel sounded, unconvinced.

“Wait. Are you being serious?” Eliot questioned slightly incredulous. He allowed himself a brief read of Cel from top to bottom, which only added to his incredulity. Cel displayed generally closed off body language—crossing his arms, leveling his head in an almost lazy challenge, slightly tilting his torso away, positioning the angle of his feet more acutely.

“Listen, I genuinely didn’t mean it that way. I’m really sorry if it came off like that,” Eliot apologized whole-heartedly.

Cel un-crossed his arms and looked down. “Yeah. No, I know you didn’t. I . . . guess it’s just late.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “I should get going, anyway. Maybell gets mad at me if I don’t get back to the orphanage early. I told her I would be late today, but she’ll probably still be upset with me.”

He straightened his back and half turned. “Good night,” he wished, then started home.

“Good night!” Eliot called a few seconds later. He couldn’t wrap his head around why Cel would act that way. It was something irrational, obviously, else Cel wouldn’t have awkwardly apologized without apologizing. Beyond that, he had no idea what it could have been. Cel wasn’t an irrational person, and the thought of Cel having irrational, negative emotions towards him simply didn’t compute.

Eliot debated running after him and asking straightforwardly, but ultimately decided against it. It was getting fairly late. He could ask first thing in the morning after a night of decompression. Right now, he had exciting, and frankly, more important things to do.

He took off at a sprint. He didn’t stop until he reached the south-east corner, where he collapsed, gasping for air. Rising crookedly above him, a perpetually leafless tree of inky black bark with gnarled branches, grew directly left of the corner-most and perfectly healthy tulip tree.

Like the blue grass, the black tree was there before the original founders settled in the area. Also like the blue grass, the black tree was obviously magical and difficult to get rid of—impossible in the tree’s case. Trying to cut it down resulted in a blunted or broken axe. Lighting it aflame saw the fire swiftly spread across its entire surface area in an enchanting bonfire, but die out a few minutes after with seemingly no effect on the tree whatsoever.

Before the graveyard was built, there used to be a bi-yearly celebration where they lit it just before midnight. It was supposed to be symbolic of something, but Eliot didn’t bother remembering that, in fact he actively forgot it. Anything remotely having to do with the poetic side of things was stupid, annoying, and a waste of time.

Finally catching his breath, Eliot crawled over and sat leaning against its trunk. The first time he laid eyes on the tree, he felt a peculiar resonance with it. He felt something beyond its outwardly magical features and indestructibility. Something beyond even mana. Within the tree he felt something that was uniquely his and the tree’s, that wasn’t replicated anywhere else in his world. The resonance shot through his nerves and struck at his heart, then went deeper still. In fact, it felt suspiciously similar to the golden light he received from Karl Favesh’s spirit.

He relaxed his body, letting his head tilt up and back to ease his neck of its load. He took in a long, steady lung-full of air through his nose and focused his Mana Sensitivity. Eliot knew something that—he assumed, since it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in his books on magic—not many people knew. Ambient mana was produced by plants. And, contrary to inference, the more magical the plant, the more unspecialized mana it pumps into the atmosphere and the purer the ambient mana is. The black tree was the sole exception that he’d found, it was completely mana inert.

In consequence, places such as the Sacred Floral Fields and the graveyard, with a large amount of rare magical plants, produced enormous quantities of ambient mana. A few of his books did at least give places like these a name: mana wells. Which Eliot felt was an injustice. Mana wells were super cool, they should have a name that reflects that, not a boring one derived from a mundane relic that didn’t even make sense since at first thought it sounds like a well made out of mana instead of something that produced mana—which also didn’t make sense since wells don’t produce water, they just house it. He understood the prevalent parallels between mana and water, but couldn’t mana wells have at least been named something less painfully mundane?

Regardless of disappointing names, the graveyard produced enough mana that Eliot’s mana storm roared at full capacity in a matter of seconds. Once that was achieved, he opened his eyes, tucked in his legs, and leaned forward. His heart pounded and a wicked grin took residency on his face as he recalled the runes of the spell Karl Favesh’s spirit had used. The memory was the clearest, most detailed one he’d managed so far. Every reflected sparkle was exactly in its place; every line and curve was perfectly crisp.

He grabbed a hold of the mana in his mana storm with fervor. He commanded it to pour out in front of him and conscientiously warped it into the appropriate shape. In seconds, the spell he’d seen was perfectly replicated with his dull gray mana. Still focusing to retain the shape, he manipulated his mana to surge into the runes like a blacksmith carefully pouring liquid metal into a mold.

As he did, Eliot felt a deep sense of familiarity within him. The process came to him like instinct. He knew there and then, this was what he was meant to do, this was what he was made for. The moment he was born, it was already decided. He would be a mage, there was nothing that could stop that. And he wouldn’t be just any mage, he was going to be the best mage alive.

It was then that he stumbled across his first complication. His mana was being spent at a worrying pace. For a few anxious seconds, the runes seemed to drink his mana without any signs of satiety. Eventually, as his mana dropped to its last eighth, he could feel the runes nearly had enough power. They were almost ready to bend reality to his will, just a little more now.

He felt the runes start the process as his mana storm fell to its last legs. They began gaining weight, ready to sink into reality. But then, the last of his mana surged into the runes, just a drop away from being enough. The runes flickered and pulsed precariously as the spell tried and failed to cast.

“Oh, shit!” Eliot whispered, realizing too late what was about to happen.

He threw his arms up and ducked into a ball as best he could. The runes shuttered one final time before exploding. With a thunderous boom and a resplendent flash, Eliot felt himself bombarded by an unforgiving wave of force. He went weightless and the world spun in a numb blur. Suddenly, everything crashed to a halt as his head cracked against something firm and stars warded his consciousness away.

He woke up smiling. For some reason, he was happy as can be. He sat up to find himself lying in teal colored grass and covered in dirt. All at once, the memories of the previous night came rushing back. Immediately he realized why there wasn’t even a dull ache.

He practically floated to his feet and jumped a meter high. With the shock of landing clashing with his body, he couldn’t contain it anymore.

He screamed at the top of his lungs, “WHOOOOOO!” Pumping his fist in the air, he added, “YES! YES! YES! YES! I’m gonna be a MAAAGE!”

He jumped twice more, screaming at the apex of each one. After stopping, he made his hands go limp at the wrist and violently shook them around like ragdolls. It looked weird, so it was only something he did when alone. It was his favorite way to show excitement. It involved frantic moving around, using his muscles, and, weirdly enough, pain. Pain was welcome because it helped him feel grounded. If he was ever feeling out of it, a good slap would bring him back. In this case, the pain helped him manage his deluge of thrill.

He was overjoyed, of course, because he’d successfully undergone a Spiritual Awakening. He’d thought it would only affect him spiritually, but his physical body received a boost as well. His brain was still going at light speeds, like it always did, but his thoughts felt smoother and the perpetual headache he’d learned to ignore was completely gone—even though he distinctly remembered his head hit something. His muscles were brimming with so much energy that he had no idea what to do with it.

Both sets of senses were sharply acute. His hearing was so sensitive that he could just make out the distortions of constantly shifting mana. Taking a deep breath in, the usual sweet smells hit stronger than ever and ozone registered just as prevalent as anything else. Even when impulsively sticking his tongue out, he thought he could taste something in the air.

The real benefits, however, were his sight and touch. A light shroud, indistinguishable from mist, pervaded the entire graveyard, and yet every detail from the shine of the sun to the fiery orange leaves looked alive. Just as he could see it, he could feel the mana wrapped around him like a phantasmal cloak. A cloak of brimming energy, caressing him as if whispering promises of limitless, world-shaping power.

Eliot stood basking in its bliss, shaking with intoxication. His life would never be boring ever again. His shackles finally crumbled to dust, and the world was indelibly altered because of it. His dreams weren’t just possibilities any more, they were certainties, inexorable facts. He was going to be a master of magic like all of history had never seen before. He was going to know everything about everything some day. It was inevitable. He was inevitable.

It was at this point that Eliot had to mentally shove himself. He was getting carried away wasn’t he? He scoffed in disbelief as he just realized the sheer amounts of narcissism that briefly took hold of his thoughts. No wonder Cel got mad at him. He would be mad at himself too if he had to sit there and listen to himself preach on and on about the ‘virtues of magic!’

In fact, Eliot gripped his left hand into a fist and punched himself across the face without restraint. Immediately, he tensed his jaw open and his fist parted into a quivering palm, hovering just near his face.

“Ow!” he enunciated with a nodding motion from his entire upper body. He didn’t factor in how much his strength had grown. In spite of this—actually, in fact partly because of this—he broke out into a beaming smile. When in doubt, pain was always his friend. He took a deep breath, finally calming down somewhat.

When he was done—still relishing the ache of his jaw—he decided he should actually quantify his gains. He turned his consciousness inward, delving into his spiritual body. In all the 2-d renditions of the spiritual body in his books, it looked like a simple human outline with a white circle, the soul, directly in the middle of the chest and bright mana swirling around that like a storm. In reality, the mana covered the soul in all three dimensions. So, it was more like the mana was a thick, protective container that took on a warbling sphere shape.

At least, that’s how it would look to normal perception. The way Eliot perceived his spiritual body was a bit more complicated. When looking inward, he saw his spiritual body from every possible orientation, every vantage point, and every point in space. He saw it all simultaneously. It wasn’t disorienting in any way either. The first time he did it, his brain easily acclimated to the new form of perception.

Upon first glance, his mana storm was substantially bigger and it seemed to rage much more intensely. Also, the consistency turned from wispy to nearly condensating. His spirits only grew as he did calculations to compare it to what he had previously. The size proved to be a little over ten times larger in quantity. That alone was amazing; he had to bite his lip hard enough to draw blood when he figured out the boost in quality.

In case he needed better measurements for times such as this one, he created a base unit of his mana equivalent to the amount of mana that took up the same amount of space as the last phalange on his pointer finger, that he called a gale. At a conservative estimate, one of his gales now was worth roughly four of his old ones. Meaning, his total amount of potential spell power was forty times what he had before.

His smile grew brighter as he opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. Maybe he deserved a little praise after all. Of course, he had no idea what the normal growth was for a Spiritual Awakening. For all he knew, forty times could be pitiful. He doubted that, though. Forty times did sound big, at least. But then again, it was also possible that his quality of mana was so behind where he should be that even if forty times was a lot, it still didn’t mean much.

He took slow, deep breaths to steady himself for what felt like the thousandth time. The flood of emotion filtered out of his system, leaving an air of general cheer. He looked to where the runes had exploded. If it were regular grass, there probably would have been a divot in the ground. The blue grass was definitely bent, but it would probably be upright in a few hours.

Eliot grinned at the black tree and pretended to high five one of the lowest branches.

He glanced around to make sure no one was in his vicinity before saying, “I did it.” He placed a hand on its bough and said, “I’m half convinced you’re sentient in some way so, just in case, thanks for all your help. This is goodbye, probably for a long time.”

He felt nothing whatsoever in response. He turned around with a sigh. It was time to deal with his parents. They were probably freaking out since he never went home last night. He crouched into a stance and took off at full tilt.

He ran faster than he ever could before. The wind rushed past him, roaring in his ears. With every stride, his leg muscles swelled in challenge against the ground. They recognize the load to be larger than they could usually handle, but instead of struggling in pain not to buckle, they filled with newfound strength and overcame it. His heart beat smoothly in his chest and his breathing came easy. He felt like he could run forever.

Making sure to avoid the morning guards, he arrived before a bright wooden cottage. He took a few minutes to catch his breath, breathing deeply. When he finished preparing himself, he walked inside.

There was a small area of dirt a step below the house’s wooden floor to remove muddied footwear. Three pairs of dirtied boots sat neatly in a row with their heals against the step. As expected, his mother and father stood angrily in a hallway that led into a kitchen behind them. The design of the door and an open air window up-high on the right side of the hallway let in light.

His father was a large man with broad shoulders and thick, muscular arms. He wore the same simple tunic and leggings that pretty much every male in the village did. A large splotch of an old red and pink burn traveled up his right arm. When Eliot asked him how he got it, he said it was from a spill involving a boiling-hot bowl of soup. He had messy, short brown hair and gray stubble coloring the bottom half of a usually gentle face. Right now though, he was frowning disapprovingly with a furrowed brow and crossed arms.

His mother was tall and lean like Eliot was, but instead of being bony she had healthy muscle earned from an active lifestyle. She had on a plain, sleeved dress that stopped at the ankles and her silvery white hair was done up in a braid. Eliot was told that it gradually turned that color when she was pregnant with him. Currently, she was glaring at him with her hands on her hips, a step ahead of his father.

“Where were you?” his father started before he could even make it through the door. “We were about to tell the Guard that you were missing.”

As Eliot fully stepped inside, closing the door behind him, his mother gasped.

“You were practicing magic,” she whispered as if it was the most horrifying thing in the world.

“L—”

Before he could even begin, she cut him off, “Don’t you dare try to lie to me. I know how you look when you’re mana fatigued.”

A surge of annoyance, bitterness, and anger rose in his chest. Truth was, he more or less hated his mother. It felt like she never gave him the benefit of the doubt. She always assumed the worst of him. All his life, she treated him like he was a helpless idiot. She would constantly tell him how he should do things as if he didn’t already know from the ten times she explained it in the past week. And she would always tell him what not to do like he was a little kid that didn’t know fire was hot.

Taking a deep breath in and raising his open palms, he said, “Please just let me explain myself for five second before you start yelling at me.”

His father put his arm around his mother and drew her in. “We’re listening,” he nodded.

In contrast, his father was the most caring, understanding person ever. It felt like he actually trusted him with any measure of responsibility. Of course, he knew it was in part the fault of their good-cop bad-cop parenting strategy. Whenever he did something wrong it was always his mother ranting about how stupid the thing he did was. When obviously, he knew it was stupid he just didn’t care about the consequences. But even then, he’d eavesdropped on his sister being reprimanded by his father before, and he was nowhere near as bad as his mother was.

“I heard there was another spirit in the graveyard, so naturally Cel and I went to go check it out. The spirit turned out to be a mage, and afterwards I tried casting a spell that I saw it use. It ended up giving me a Spiritual Awakening but it also made me fall unconscious. I’m sorry I worried you, I didn’t know that was going to happen,” Eliot gave an edited run down of what took place. “But the best part is,” he prefaced dramatically, some glee coming back, “As thanks for exorcizing it, it gave me a letter of recommendation to the Arcane Academy of Everveil!”

He held out the letter for them to see as if it were a trophy he’d earned. His parents’ expressions changed from mad to reserved as they exchanged a heavy glance.

“This means I can go learn magic for free! You don’t have to worry about money anymore,” he explained, thinking they must not understand.

Searching their faces again, they looked almost somber.

“I don’t get it, I thought you would be happy for me.” He looked to his mother and asked, “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

His mother smiled, but it was obvious that it was fake. “Oh, my child,” she whispered softly, stepping forward to cup his face. “Of course we’re happy for you. This is an amazing opportunity.”

Eliot resisted the urge to smack her hands away. There was that infamous phrase she loved to say: oh my child. Every time she said it, it felt like every problem he had with her rolled into one and spat at him. It might as well be her openly admitting she thought of him as nothing but a little kid.

He used sitting down to remove his boots as cover for pulling away and hiding his frown.

When he was done, his mother said, “You’re covered in dirt. Go wash up and we’ll talk more when you’re done. Ok?”

Eliot half-heartedly hummed his agreement and made a beeline for the hallway leading out of the kitchen. Immediately after he left the room, his mother’s complexion crumbled. His father drew her into a hug, looking similarly forlorn.

“We knew this day was going to come,” she whispered through thick tears, “This is what we agreed.”

“It doesn’t make it any easier,” he validated, squeezing tighter.

“What if he isn’t ready? What if we didn’t raise him well enough?”

“There’s nothing we can do about that now. We have to have faith.”

Meanwhile, Eliot let anger color his face the second he was out of view. He couldn’t believe them. His entire life, he’d made it crystal clear that becoming a mage was everything he’s ever wanted. He played by their rules—for the most part—his entire life. In return, they promised him he could learn magic as long as he did it safely. Now he had a full ride to the best magic school on the Two Continents, and they had the audacity to look at him like that? He was done with their disapproval.

It was painfully obvious by now they just didn’t want him to be a mage. They would probably love it if he gave up his hopes and dreams to spend the rest of his life withering away in the Town of Flora. For him to become a carpenter like they were, marry Gloria from a few doors down, and give them grandchildren like an obedient little son. But he wasn’t going to. Gloria was a gods damned bland fucking idiot just like everyone else. And he would rather be skinned alive and roasted over a fire than waste his life being a carpenter.

He didn’t care about trying to please them anymore. He was going to become a mage so powerful that historians will write about him for centuries, just to spite them.

Unfortunately, Elizebeth chose in the middle of his tantrum to turn the corner. He changed dispositions as soon as he could, but it was already too late.

Elizebeth was his older sister of three years and the spitting image of their mother only with brown hair.

She crossed her arms and asked, “What’s with you?”

“Why do you assume there’s something wrong with me?” he tried.

“You didn’t come home last night. Need I say more?”

“Fine,” he sighed cantankerously. “Stuff happened last night and I got a thing that’ll let me go to the Arcane Academy of Everveil for free.”

“Oh my gods! Eliot, that’s amazing,” she cheered, uncrossing her arms. “I would hug you if you weren’t gross.”

“I know right? It is amazing,” he said, feeling vindicated.

She inclined her head. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Well . . . when I told mom and dad, they weren’t as excited. I swear they were sad more than anything,” he huffed.

Elizebeth smirked with a shake of her head. “I think aside from Cel, I know better than anyone just how smart you are. But I also know that sometimes you’re so dumb that it’s funny,” she chuckled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How far away is Everveil?”

“It’s only . . .” Eliot paused, willing a flush to his face, already aware of her thought process. “Something like . . . half the continent.”

“Now do you see? They’re finally letting their sheltered little genius go. Of course they’re going to be worried,” she ‘enlightened’ him.

“It won’t even be that long. It only takes a year to graduate,” Eliot argued, pretending to be flustered.

“So a year plus however long it takes you to travel half the continent. Never mind, you should be home by supper,” she said sarcastically.

“It’s not like I’m going to have to walk the whole way. There’s Public Portal Transport.”

“The closest settlement with Public Portal Transport is Relice. Which is how far away again?”

“Something like half the distance to Everveil,” Eliot sighed in mock defeat.

“A quarter of the continent is better than half, but if anyone can imagine how huge that distance still is, it’s you. Look, don’t feel bad about it. I’m sure mom and dad have been dreading his day for a while now. Just know that they are happy for you, ok?” she consoled.

He mustered a small smile. “Yeah, ok. You’re right.”

“Good. Hurry up with your shower so we can start celebrating.”

With that, she continued on her way. Like before, Eliot allowed disdain to rise on his face. His parents were the ones who demanded he go to an academy in the first place. And, just like she said, they had his entire life to prepare for this day.

Sure, a quarter of the continent sounded like a lot, but the time he spent away would be nothing compared to the grand scheme of things. At the very worst, it would take a year and a half to travel to Relice. Including his year at the academy, he would be back in four years. It wasn’t a negligible amount of time, especially for him, but it was barely around a tenth of his parent’s life. Living his dream life at the cost of four years was nothing.

But that was speaking hypothetically. In reality, the second he mastered the portal spell that Karl Favesh had used, he could attend class in Everveil during the morning and be back home for supper like he was never gone. Ironically, what Elizebeth said was true.

He didn’t care if everyone else thought he was being unreasonable. Everyone else voluntarily chained themselves with inane traditions and toxic ideas of how things ‘should’ be. Just because it was the majority didn’t mean it was right. He didn’t care if his parents were the ones who brought him into the world, he never asked to be born in the first place and it was his life to live as he pleased, not theirs.

Thankfully, daydreaming about all the amazing possibilities the portal spell held helped calm him down a lot during his shower. Taking a second to be grateful that the Crucible Empire had plumbing good enough to be in every household when—according to a book he’d read—most other kingdoms didn’t, also helped him calm down a great deal. The water wasn’t hot by any measure, if he wanted that he would still have to heat a pot, but it wasn’t cold either.

Exploring the Town of Flora’s sewage system and how it all worked was a large part of his early life. For a long time now, his family turned to him whenever there was a problem with the water. Fixing it all with his father produced some of his happiest memories. Which was exactly why he needed to leave and actually start his life before he died of boredom.

By the time he was dressed, an impromptu festival was coming to life in his honor. It was very hard faking a happy face when he found out. Afterall, instead of spending the day with his family and close friends, he was going to have to spend it making agonizing small talk with people he didn’t care for. Furthermore, he utterly despised having extended interactions with most adults for the simple reason that they were almost always stupid. A belligerent thirty year old man that often reeked of alcohol and never accomplished anything in his life spouting nonsense he called advice was high on the list of things Eliot did not want to deal with.

Unfortunately, in typical tragic fashion, his day was filled with exactly that. Poor Cel had to sit through it with him since the only time they could chat was briefly before the next person walked up to ‘congratulate’ him. Then there was the inevitable fact that with any celebration there was going to be plenty of alcohol. Being around intoxicated people was bad enough, but to make matters worse a lot of those people expected Eliot to drink with them. He was lucky to have gotten by with nothing more than a few polite swigs, though it didn’t do his breath any favors.

He was glad to admit that if his parents’ incessant pestering achieved anything it was that he knew not to give in to peer pressure. He didn’t have to drink if he didn’t want to, and if he did he should do it responsibly. It should also be applauded that they were excellent role models. He hadn’t seen either of his parents touch alcohol once in his entire life. He wasn’t sure he could say the same for anyone except Captain Keizer and a few other guardsmen.

The worst part, however—the cherry on top of everything—was town drama. A few years ago, a man putatively referred to as that-snake-Verline, moved into town. He was a successful merchant that frequently brought trade to the town. The mayor thought it would be a good idea to lure him into residency to bolster the town’s economy and cultivate a friendship.

That avaricious snake wasn’t satisfied with special treatment from the mayor, he also had to go and buy the orphanage. It was common knowledge that he’d been embezzling funds that were supposed to go to the orphans. He barely gave them enough not to starve, and sometimes not even that. If it wasn’t for Eliot’s parents that frequently bought them food and clothing, they would all be dead by now.

For that alone, Eliot swore to himself the first thing he would do when he came back as a powerful mage was send Verline flying across the horizon, preferably while on fire. But, as if that wasn’t enough grief, Verline had a penchant for securing bedfellows, in which Eliot was fairly sure the mayor was complicit. And there were a blood boiling amount of times where Elizebeth faced pressure to be one. He wasn’t overly worried about her, though. He knew she had too much self-respect to ever comply.

The problem arose from the ones who either didn’t or were being taken advantage of. Regular cruelty and ignorance spawned enough drama, but with that extra helping of horridness the town has been becoming more and more tense. Nowadays it felt like a pressure cooker that severely needed to be opened. So, thanks to that-snake-Verline, he had to dodge land minds, steer conversations heading towards unsavory topics, and diffuse brewing arguments. All. Day. Long. It was tiring. Verline was currently on a trip to a neighboring settlement, so at least he didn’t have to worry about that.

Also thankfully, he and Cel did get a chance to talk in relative private during a lull.

“I just wanted to say, I really do feel bad about last night. I’m sorry for being so inconsiderate,” he earnestly apologized.

Cel looked down and blushed hard enough that Eliot easily caught the slight color in his skin. “No, I should be the one saying sorry. I wasn’t really mad at what you said. It just . . . really dawned on me for the first time that you would be leaving, and I acted selfish. I thought I’d already prepared myself for it, I had a go-bag and everything just in case you wanted to run away in the middle of the night. But I hadn’t, so I’m sorry.”

“Wait.” Eliot spun to fully face him. “You would’ve gone with me?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Cel answered, meeting Eliot’s eyes with a smile. “If I let you run away by yourself, you would’ve gotten eaten by something because you thought its teeth were fascinating.”

“But . . . what about Maybell? And Everyone else?” he asked, incredulous.

Cel looked away as he explained, “Leaving them would’ve been hard, but you would’ve needed me more than they did. I definitely would have worried about Maybell, but if I keep babying her she’s never going to learn how to be her own person.”

Eliot had to go to great lengths not to show how touched he was. They got to talk, but there were still people all around them. An emotional thanks was the best he could manage without losing composure.

“Speaking of Maybell . . .” Cel started.

“Speaking of Maybell,” Eliot repeated with a smirk. He was fairly certain he knew where this was going from the many previous times Cel started a sentence with those words.

“She got pretty mad when she heard you were leaving. She’s refusing to eat, she’s not talking to anyone, you know how she gets.”

“I don’t know, that sounds like normal Maybell to me,” Eliot voiced, knowing Cel wouldn’t bring it up if something wasn’t happening, but still wanting to add fuel to the flames.

“Okay. You’re right,” Cel admitted cautiously, “But I can tell she’s mad. I was hoping you could talk to her before you left.”

“Definitely,” he promised. “Just as soon as I get free time,” he sighed, seeing that people were starting to make their way towards him once again.

His sour mood was somewhat placated when he saw the Serens were a part of them. Hailey and Venter Seren were the town’s physicians. Eliot spent much of his time learning from, watching, or talking to them. Although they weren’t very popular among the populace because of their misunderstood line of work, they and his parents had been close friends since before he was born. As much as he took issue with his parents, he was proud they recognized how important the Seren’s work was, unlike most everyone else.

Fortunately, some hours later, Eliot found an opportunity to slip away when no one was looking. He covertly made his way over to the orphanage, where he found his parents playing with the younger orphans. The orphanage itself was a large two-story building of wood and stone, standing atop a large hill a little ways away from any other building and close to the forest’s edge. He’d heard that it was intended to be a manor for the lord that owned the land, but near the end of construction the lord decided he wanted to stay in one of his other settlements. It was repurposed to an orphanage soon after because of its large amount of space. Although orphans weren’t common, every now and then tragedy would strike or like in Cel and Maybell’s case, stray children would find their way to the Town of Flora fleeing something.

At the base of the hill, a crowd of rambunctious kids laughed and squealed at whatever game they were playing with Eliot’s parents. It so happened that the descriptor younger orphans applied to all of the town’s orphans save four, one of whom being Cel, who was also the oldest. Anyone older counted as an adult and was usually making a living already.

As Eliot expected, Maybell wasn’t taking part in their fun. From his angle of approach, he could clearly see her sitting with her knees drawn to her chest, alone on the other side of the hill. She didn’t respond to his presence as he drew near. Her blank expression remained fixated on the distant cultivated fields at the town’s eastern edge.

Eliot nonchalantly plopped himself beside her, joining her in gazing into the distance. Maybell was Cel’s younger sister. She had the same vivid, wavy red hair down to her shoulders and was a shade lighter than Cel from lack of sun exposure. Same as any other female child, she wore an ankle-length linen tunic, stockings, and leather shoes. On top of all that, she wrapped a mauve cloak around herself like a blanket, with its hood up.

If it were anyone else he would assume they were sulking at a moment’s glance. When it came to Maybell, however, that was completely normal. It was impossible to tell how she was feeling or what she was thinking from her body language. It was one of the things Eliot loved about her. Whereas all he needed to read Cel was sufficient time, Maybell never failed to surprise him. Along with her disregard for social cues, she was always interesting to be around.

Above all else though, Eliot liked her because she was the only person other than himself he considered on the same level of intelligence. When he officially met the Verrus siblings four years ago, the first thing she did was hug him and say ‘You feel nice.’ Cel was so embarrassed that he turned beet red and apologized a few thousand times. Eliot couldn’t stop laughing. His overwhelming mirth only left him woefully unprepared when he noticed the thick book she carried was entitled The Economic side of Magic. It was an overview of the various ways magic was used to bolster the economies of different kingdoms and empires, how it could be used in the future, and it was written in old Killian dialect. He asked to borrow the book as soon as she was done, obviously, and had a short but magnificently engaging conversation with her about it.

Ever since then, Maybell had been one of his favorite people. It worked out nicely because although she obviously had a deeper relationship with Cel, the tribulations of being siblings made Eliot fairly certain he was her favorite person.

“Cel tells me you’re mad that I’m leaving,” he broke the silence.

“Mhm.”

Eliot couldn’t help a wistful smile. Life would be so much easier if only he could answer everyone with a hum. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“No.”

“No?” he asked brightly. “But you haven’t even heard what I have to offer.”

“I don’t care.”

He offered, “What if . . . I brought back the third and second volumes of The Cruceaen Journey? Does that pique your interest?”

“No.”

“Come on,” he drawled, “I’m sure you can imagine something you want from Everveil. You remember how the technology in a town like ours compared to the capital is estimated to be ten years behind, don’t you?”

The only response she gave was to curl up into herself even more.

Seeing that the bribery route obviously wasn’t going to work, Eliot changed strategies. He let every drop of the mock joviality drain from his body. He leaned forward, bracing himself with his forearms against the knees of his obtuse legs, and hanging his head lower than his hunched shoulders. He made sure his hair fell into his eyes and his hands dangled like corpses.

“Sorry. I guess that’s what I get for trying to bribe you like a toddler,” he said quietly.

“You’re acting like I’m still seven,” she confirmed equally as dampened.

A genuine pang of guilt spiked into his heart. He hadn’t fully registered that Maybell would be exactly like him. Her lack of social acuity and the five year age difference mixed with his purposeful disregard for social conventions whenever he interacted with her had caused him to subconsciously brand her as something of a lesser, and in a lot of ways duller, version of himself.

“Sorry,” he apologized again in true earnest. “I’ll be . . . I’ll be honest with you . . . because I think I’m starting to understand how you’re feeling right now. This place is pretty horrible.”

“It’s not that bad,” Maybell interjected suddenly. “It has Cel, even if he’s always being weird. And it had you.”

“But it won’t anymore,” he finished gently.

She nodded glumly.

“There’s nothing I could say to make up for that. But I will say that you, Maybell Verrus, are brilliant. Sooner rather than later, you’ll find what it is in the world that you’re meant for, and you’re going to be amazing.”

She was silent for a long moment; then, she turned her head to look at him. Letting him see the full color in her amber eyes for possibly the first time, she asked him, “What if I don’t want to be amazing?”

Eliot smiled warmly.

“Then, you don’t have to be. You can stay here with Cel, reading for the sake of reading. In another year, Cel will be old enough to get an apprenticeship; he’s smart, so he’ll probably be a farmer or seamster. Before you know it, he’ll have a job good enough that you probably won’t have to work. You can get a job to pass the time or help out with Cel’s, or do whatever normal thing you want to do.”

Maybell’s face lit up with a smile. “OK,” she giggled.

Eliot got the feeling she wouldn’t know when to break eye contact, so he stood up with the satisfaction of a job well done.

Before he could turn to leave, she spoke again, “I know what I want now.”

“So you do want something after all,” he smirked.

She jumped up with balled fists, uncharacteristically enthusiastic as she proclaimed, “When you come back, I want you to teach me magic!”

Eliot’s insides convulsed in a painful wince. He was under the impression that she already knew you had to be Mana Sensitive to be a mage. But, seeing how she perfectly embodied juvenile delight, when she usually appeared devoid of emotion, even he didn’t have the heart to break the bad news.

“Sure,” he said, ruffling her hair so he didn’t have to look her in the eyes as he lied through his teeth.

With her hood off, she looked like an even bigger ball of sunshine. And, as if to rub it in, she shrilled, “Yay!”

He reasoned that in four year’s time she would probably be old enough to handle the heartbreak. Or, if he was especially lucky, Cel would explain it to her for him. Still, it smarted that she was so joyful.

Thankfully, the rest of the day passed by blissfully swift afterwards. Before he called it a night, his parents pulled him aside and informed him that his best option of traveling a long distance was to join a traveling caravan making its way back east. They talked to the traveling caravan currently in town and regretfully learned that they were leaving tomorrow. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done to pretend he was similarly regretful to leave so soon. It almost felt like the stars were aligning for him. It went without saying that he launched into a fit of celebration the second his parents were out of earshot.

The next morning was idyllic. First thing, he and his family went to the orphanage, where they and everyone he actually liked enjoyed a lavish breakfast. Objectively it wasn’t much, but by their standards it was a fully-fledged feast. Afterwards, while the caravan packed everything needed for the journey, he spent quality time with everyone he was going to miss.

Maybell being the sole exception. Entertaining the thought that she wanted to participate but didn’t know how, he talked to her under the guise that he needed to confirm the books she wanted him to get. When he tried to get her attention, though, he was completely ignored in favor of her book. He didn’t blame her. After all, The Peasant with a Sword, was an amazing read and it was the long-awaited sequel to her favorite story. It also helped that Eliot was entirely too amused by her one eighty to be offended. It served as a memorable reminder that Maybell functioned on a different wavelength. A simple promise meant for four years in the future proved to be enough for her. He had absolutely no idea if it was because she was naïve, trusted him to a fault, or something else he wasn’t seeing.

Regardless, a smile didn’t leave his lips until they all walked to the eastern edge of the town. The caravan was all-set on the trail leading into the forest. Standing at attention before the treeline was the town Guard. Eliot’s entourage fell back as the Guard marched forward to salute him. All but Captain Keizer, drew their weapons, whatever they were, and stabbed them into the dirt. The captain placed his hand on Eliot’s shoulder with a nod. Despite Eliot being just over six feet, the captain was an entire head taller.

“The town will miss you in more ways than one. You and Cel have done a lot to keep the peace. For that, we thank you,” he honored in a projected voice.

Eliot sprouted a wide smile. “I’m happy to help. Besides, like you said, I didn’t do it alone,” he said cheerfully.

Captain Keizer looked back, signaling the guards to pick up their weapons and scatter in a rush to get back to their duties. He gave one more nod—which Eliot returned in kind—and jogged after them.

Eliot spun around to face his friends and family, his smile turning melancholic. Elizebeth walked up first.

“Don’t forget us when you get famous, alright?” she said as they shared a hug.

Eliot chuckled, “I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”

His father walked up next. Eliot found himself standing straighter and squaring his shoulders, nearly subconsciously. He opened his mouth, but before anything could come out, his father crushed him into a hug. He returned it as best he could.

His father pushed Eliot out to arms’ length by the shoulders. Softly, he said, “You’re going to change the world. Change it for the better.”

Eliot’s throat choked with emotion. He didn’t trust himself to respond, so he nodded. He took a deep breath to steady himself and built up the nerve he would need to fake his emotions, as his mother stepped forward.

Before anything else, she held out a book bound in a pearl white material. “My parting gift to you,” was all she said.

Taking it in his hands, the book felt and looked impossibly clean and in mint condition. Looking inside sent a sledgehammer into his chest.

“Is this . . . ?” he asked breathlessly, looking up to meet his mother’s eyes in disbelief.

Gradually, she explained, “A long time ago, I tutored a young girl who was mana sensitive. She wrote everything she learned about magic in that journal. And, when she didn’t need it anymore, she gave it to me as a reminder of her gratitude. I think you’d make better use of it than me.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” was all he could manage with the torrent of emotions warring in his stomach.

“Oh my child, you don’t need to say anything,” she soothed, pulling him into a hug.

That was the worst part about hating his mother. Every now and then she would do something unequivocally loving. And he would be overwhelmed with guilt until she did something he hated again. At that point, he would have to wage a painful war to convince himself he still hated her, and remind himself that a few gestures here and there did not, in fact, make a good parent. To add insult to injury, he was going to be stewing in guilt for a while now that he wasn’t going to see her everyday.

“Stay safe,” she whispered in his ear.

“I will,” he promised.

Finally, she let him go and he directed his gaze toward Cel. He couldn’t help a smirk at how awkward Cel looked. Suddenly, from behind him, Maybell ran up to Eliot and threw her arms around him. She rubbed the side of her face against his stomach like it was a soft pillow.

Eliot had made his peace with Maybell’s hugs a long time ago. Anyone worth impressing would see it for what it was: a little girl being a little girl, albeit very weirdly. He waited the usual twenty seconds before pushing her away and crouching down to be level with her.

“Take it easy on Cel for me. I know you think he’s weird, but he tries his best,” he told her.

“Okay!” she responded brightly.

Eliot rose back to his full height, but before he could shift his attention, Maybell tugged at his arm.

“Do the hair thing!”

Eliot laughed and ruffled her hair. She bristled in delight and proceeded to run back into town, presumably to keep reading her book.

Looking at Cel again, he seemed more uncomfortable than before. He kept glancing around like he didn’t know where to look and he danced from foot to foot like the food was lava. Eliot let a smirk return to his face. If that was how Cel always acted when things got sappy, it was no wonder Maybell thought he was weird.

Eliot readjusted the bag on his back and walked up to him instead of the other way around. Cel stiffened like he was made of wood. Eliot grabbed Cel's right hand with his own and pulled him into a shoulder bump.

“I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, later.”

Eliot stepped back to address everyone and said, “This is goodbye, then.”

His family drew him into one last group hug and he turned to join the caravan.