It took two days of terrible waiting for the decision to come from the Arcanum, and even then she didn’t have the luxury of opening the envelope alone. Leopold arrived at 23 Grave Street a bare hour after the decision had been delivered, and she still hadn’t opened it yet.
“We can open them together,” he said, and from his eyes there was no way he thought she wouldn’t get into the Arcanum. She’d paid the money, after all. She would’ve thought so too, except for the fact that she had an undetermined essence capacity and was unable to even pass the spell demonstration test. She’d checked the mail each day waiting for a letter inviting her back to redo her test with the crystal, but it hadn’t come.
“Come on,” Leopold said, and took out his pocketknife. He slit first his own envelope, then hers. “No use putting it off.”
“You first,” she said, sure of what her own would say. He hesitated a moment, then slid the sheaf of paper out from within the brown envelope and unfolded it. A quiet click from the kitchen told Willow that Margaret was listening in.
“I’m approved to start classes tomorrow,” Leopold said, and she saw him smile. Lucky him.
“Okay, now yours.”
Willow took a deep breath and fumbled in the envelope for her sheaf. Her hands were already beginning to waste, and the pain of the muscles eating themselves was greater even than the pain of her old wasted hands. She gingerly grasped the sheaf and spread it open using her forearm.
“Well,” Leopold asked, after she’d taken quite a bit of time to read the close-set text.
“I’m admitted,” she said, and Leopold smiled.
“See, I told you—”
“Probationarily,” Willow continued, still reading the text. There was quite a lot of it, setting out conditions and the stages that would lead to her dismissal from the Arcanum, no refund given.
“What… what does that mean?”
“It means that if I can’t produce a satisfactory introductory spell within the next two weeks, I’m gone,” she said. “It means that if the metrology department can’t get a lock on my measurements, I’m gone. It means that I don’t even have housing.”
“Don’t have housing?”
“Maybe they—,” she said, then tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. “Maybe they don’t think I’ll be around long enough to move in.”
“What in the seven hells,” Leopold said, and snatched the sheaf from her fingers. It wasn’t difficult, she was barely holding on anyway. She turned away as Leopold began to peruse the regulations that spelled her doom. Five years she’d been working on just the first half of the magelight spell, and now they expected her to master layering within two weeks. It was a joke; she didn’t blame them for not giving her housing. Not with those impossible conditions.
“Willow,” Margaret’s soft voice came from the door to her tiny room, which was still mostly the storage room it had been before Bryan had so selflessly given it to her. Willow tried to dry her eyes before she turned to look at the woman.
Apparently she didn’t do a very good job, because Margaret descended on her and wrapped her in the soft embrace you’d save for hugging the terminally ill. It was just the same kind of hug her parents gave her, and she rested her cheek on Margaret’s shoulder and felt the tears fall hot and fast into the older woman’s hair.
“You’ll always have a place with us,” Margaret said, whispering into her ear. “For as long as you want to stay in the city, you can live here.”
“No, I can’t,” Willow said, shook her head, and tried to disengage, but Margaret was unyielding.
“Yes you can. Have you forgotten so easily what you did for me? For us? This is the least of what I can offer.”
The deathworm. She saw it rear up now, as she did in her dreams, and felt the iron of the cane in her hands. She swung, and the cane bounced off the gelatinous hide of the worm. The worm turned to her and began to suck. She felt her essence draw out through her skin before falling into darkness and death.
“N-no,” Willow said, and began to struggle. The worm was on her, wrapped around her. Then, it wasn’t. It was just Margaret. Willow felt clammy with sweat and her heart was beating terribly fast.
She remembered that Leopold was still in the room with them, and looked at him. He was watching her, face pale. A sheen of sweat dotted his brow. He swallowed hard.
“You still see it too,” he whispered, and she nodded.
“I can hardly sleep—,” he said, but Margaret interrupted.
“Come into the kitchen. Let me fix you two something. You’ve both gone through it today in your own ways, and you need to eat.”
They followed her through the door to the kitchen like children.
🜛
Another letter came that day for Willow in the bundle of mail, also addressed from the Arcanum, but she didn’t discover it until later that night after she’d nearly eaten Margaret out of house and home. That letter was from the metrology department, specifying the date and time when she should arrive to be tested again. It was right after her first class, which may or may not mean that she’d already cast a spell that day. Well, if that was how they wanted it she wouldn’t correct them, the bastards.
After assurances from Leopold that he would do anything he could to help her stay in the school with him, he eventually returned to his inn to prepare to move into his dormitory. Bryan came home later that night and Willow couldn’t help but hear a quick and whispered conversation between him and Margaret where she warned him not to ask about Willow’s admission.
That was fine by her.
The next day, her first day of schooling, started when Margaret woke her at dawn. In the kitchen she found Bryan suiting up in a set of light leather armor.
“Are you going out on another caravan,” Willow asked around the lard-fried eggs Margaret had set in front of her.
“Not a caravan, but while I’m in the city I pull down some extra income as a wall-guard. The pay isn’t as high, but its easy, safe work, and I get back home by dinner every night. What’s not to love?”
After another porkchop and a slice of bread loaded with gravy, Willow was finally ready to set out to the school. It was a tortuously long walk, but she thought she’d make it before the first bells rang before her class.
As it turned out, she barely made it at that. The walk was so much more tiring without Leopold there to keep the pace, and even when she reached the vast castle-like arrangement of buildings which was the Arcanum, she wasn’t sure where to go. Helpfully, there were aids at the entrance to each building, and she was quickly directed to a small hall off the side of the main building she’d entered the day before.
Quite apart from the gorgeous reliefs and intricate carvings of the main hall, this building looked more utilitarian than not, although still constructed of the same light stone as the rest of the school. It’s door didn’t soar high into the sky, but was normally proportioned. It didn’t even have iron banding or intricate locks, which probably meant it had been built after the city walls were established.
A few other students were making their way through the small front door, and Willow slipped as gracefully as she could into the stream, which wasn’t very gracefully at all. She’d have to get a new cane, and soon, if she was going to keep up this amount of walking.
There were only a couple of rooms past the door in the small hallway lit by magelight, and she recognized the room number of the one on the left and followed a few straggling students in.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
The room looked much like the schoolroom in which she’d received elementary education back in Bridgewater. It had a dozen chairs set behind long tables, with a large blackboard set up at the front of the room. There was no teacher’s desk to head the class, and Willow assumed that the professor would be standing nearly the entire time.
“Hey,” Willow heard a familiar voice call, and saw Leopold sitting at the front of the room waving toward her. There weren’t that many students in the front row, and he had a seat on either side of him. Willow carefully made her way past the other chairs, careful not to bang herself on any wooden backs, until she lowered herself into the seat beside Leopold.
“You’re almost late.”
“Bryan’s house is so far,” Willow huffed as she fished the textbook from her bag. This first day she only had two classes separated by her time at the metrology lab, and the load hadn’t been that terrible. She could imagine though a time in the future when she might need more help, or somewhere to store her things closer to the Arcanum.
“Did you get moved in alright,” she asked as a portly man walked into the room and shut the door.
“It’s small, I have a roommate, but it does the job,” Leopold said. “Honestly, your lodgings at Bryan’s are bigger than mine.”
The man at the front of the class harrumphed, which got the room’s attention. Willow sat forward and, even after everything that had happened with admissions the day before, she couldn’t help but feel excitement bubbling in her veins. This was it, she in school to learn magic.
At least for today.
“I am Professor Brandeweiss,” he said. “And you are currently in Introduction to Theory of Essence-crafting. If this is not the class you were expecting, you’d do well to leave now.”
No one got up to rush out the door, and after a moment he smiled to himself.
“Always a couple every year, maybe they’re getting smarter,” he said, just loud enough so the entire class heard it, and then picked up a piece of chalk.
“Essence,” he said, and wrote the word out on the board. “It’s known by many names across the years. Mana, juice, ectoplasm. All refer to the same thing.” For each of these he wrote the name, followed by two that Willow didn’t even think were words, as they were made up of lines and slashes.
“For all of recorded history, humanity and the magical creatures have been able to harness and direct this substance within our bodies to create effects magical on the world around us. Magical creatures do this action innately, unconsciously, whereas humans are required to make use of spell-forms and concepts to enact our will. But when a mage masters the spell-form and concept, they can move mountains, melt glaciers, open rifts in space.”
Yes, this was what Willow wanted. All her years of practice, all her years of fantasizing about this moment, and it wasn’t disappointing. These were the things she wanted to do; to gain mastery over the world around her. With her body the way it was, magic was the only way she could have any effect on the world at all. A mage didn’t have to be strong or nimble, they just had to know the secrets of magic, and that magic would do their bidding.
“Essence is one of the five essential humors of the body, and the only one we can control by sheer force of will. While imbalances in the other humors bring sickness and death, usage of essence does not appear to affect overall health except when bent to that specific purpose.”
“The concept that we impart upon our essence is all-important to the final effect of the spell. The form directs the essence, tells it what to do as it leaves our body, but the concept will determine the outcome. It is most important for a mage to understand how to produce essence of a certain concept, and their own ability with each type of concept. You might have been told in your introductory texts that all one has to do is recite the mantra to impart a concept, but this is a lie. The concepts in question are inextricably tied with the mage’s own understanding of those concepts. For a mage who speaks a different language, the words “blazing light” would mean nothing at all. Even for those of us who have grown up speaking different dialects, you may be forced to use differing words than the others when concept selection becomes all important. You there, boy in the front row.”
Willow startled when the professor’s finger landed so close to her seat, but it was Leopold at which it was pointing.
“Yes, professor?”
“Cast a magelight for me, if you will.”
Leopold shook his head as if disentangling himself from the professor’s lecture. He cupped his hands and Willow watched as he intoned his concept, shaped it, and layered a second on top.
The professor whispered a spell to himself and enacted a spell-form—that of slipping on a glove—then reached out and literally plucked the magelight from Leopold’s hands.
“As you can see, young…” he looked down, and it was a moment before Leopold responded.
“Leopold,” he said.
“—Leopold here has produced a magelight which shines with a yellow brilliance. If you look up to the corners of the room, the magelights there have a slight tint of yellow, but are much closer to the sun’s rays. Why is that?”
Willow tentatively raised her hand.
“Yes, miss…”
“Willow,” she said. “His own individual concept of ‘blazing’ has colored the final concept. When we think of ‘blazing’, we usually think of a fire or a torch, which both produce yellow light.”
“Correct, exactly correct,” the professor said, which bolstered her confidence. If she couldn’t cast spells correctly, then at least she could read her texts and know what she should be able to do.
“And to illustrate the individuality of concepts, we’ll have Ms. Willow here cast her own magelight to highlight the difference in hue.”
Willow’s mouth dropped in shock. She felt sweat prickle her body. Cast magelight, here? She couldn’t even cast it under the best of circumstances. She could barely get the first concept out, nevermind the steadfast layer.
“Whenever you are ready.”
“S-sir,” she stammered.
“Go on,” he said. There was no malice in his look—he really thought she could just do it on command. Somehow that expectation was worse than if she’d thought he was intentionally making fun of her after seeing her evaluation.
“Using the same words, if you will,” he said, and Willow cupped her hands into the spell-form.
“Blazing light,” she said, willing her essence not to fail her this time. It moved sluggishly, like the water in a reed-choked marsh. Apparently the effect of the essence injection had worn off as her body replenished its essence during the night.
“Blazing light,” she grunted, trying to force the essence to move from her core, through her arms, out of her hands. It was like pushing against a boulder, or wading upstream. There was no sense of momentum, just resistance. Maybe that metrologist was right. Maybe she did have more resistance than everyone else.
“Blazing light,” she gasped, and a wisp of essence spilled from her fingers to coalesce into a sphere the size of a pin’s head between her hands. It shone with a yellow light as well, but even in her distress Willow could see that it was of a subtly different hue to Leopold’s—a tallow candle to his pitch torch.
Willow took a breath, preparing to attempt a layer, when the professor stepped forward.
“I think you have demonstrated the difference in hue quite acceptably, Ms. Willow,” he said, and when she glanced up she saw concern on his face. He’d noticed how hard it was for her, and wanted to save her from embarrassment. In that moment, she felt infinitely grateful to him.
“Now, if we compare these two magelights side by side,” he said, and reached out for the essence core between Willow’s hands. She gasped as the strangest thing happened.
Her hands spasmed like they used to do when she was younger. At the end of the day, when she’d run out of energy. Her palm flopped down, hinging unnaturally on her wrist, and her fingers went limp and numb. The professor noticed something too, because his eyes went wide and he attempted to draw the magelight out from between her fingers, only to have it boil away in his hand.
Willow hissed to herself. Her hands felt as though they were studded with pins and needles, prickling all over as waves of hot and cold washed over them. It was as if every sensation it was possible to feel was buffeting her flesh at the same moment. She squeezed her hands under her armpits in an attempt to keep them from exploding. Were they going to explode? She didn’t know.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” she stammered up at the professor, who was looking with great fascination at his own hand, the one he’d sheathed in a spell. He rubbed his fingers together.
“I didn’t finish the spell,” she gasped, and that seemed to bring him back to himself. He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice that only she could hear.
“Are you alright, Miss Willow?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said, and it was true. Her hands were settling down, she could feel her fingers again and they flexed against her sides. She had regained control over her hands, and the burning sensation was retreating.
“Do you need to go and see the nurse?”
“No, no. I’m alright,” she said, pushing through the lingering pain. He stayed there for a second longer, looking into her face, before rising to face the class again.
“Miss Willow here has just unintentionally demonstrated one of the properties of essence, in that spells will cause disruption in their surrounding essence flow. I attempted, foolishly I might add, to retrieve her magelight before she’d layered it with steadfastness and completed the spell, thus subjecting my ethereal gauntlet to unregulated essence and canceling both it and her uncompleted spell.”
A hand went up in the back of the class. “You said that spells cause disruption to essence flow, but your spell also was canceled. Does it work the other way around as well?”
A muscle in Professor Brandeweiss’s jaw jumped and his eyes flickered down to Willow for an instant before he responded.
“Not usually.”