Page 22 of A Healer's Wrath
“Irina?” the tall Mage with a square jaw asked, inclining his head.
“You can sense my Light. Why ask?” I hadn’t meant to snap, but their sudden, unannounced intrusion into my most personal of spaces was a sharp stone in my shoe.
One of the other Mages, a short, round woman with her hair spun up in a far-too-tight graying bun, pursed her lips as though she’d tasted something bitter. I wondered if bitter was all she ever tasted.
“Just being polite.” The tall man smiled, though his voice carried a tone of formality I had never heard in Kelså’s. “I am Grand Mage Johann Malvier. Is there somewhere we might speak?”
I glanced at my father. He quirked a brow, then rose and went inside.
The woman waddled forward and plopped into his seat before Johann could take a step. He gave me another shrug and remained on the ground before the porch’s bottom step.
“Kelså speaks very highly of you, and word has spread of the good work you are doing here in the city. We wanted to meet you for ourselves and see how we might help in your . . . education.”
Johann sounded sincere, and he had kind eyes; but something in the way he said the word “education” made ants crawl across my skin.
If the Grand Mage made my skin prickly, the other Mages made me want to bathe.
The woman was blatant in her disregard for anyone else. I got the impression she likely treated the Grand Mage with the same contempt she displayed as she scowled over our house and land.
The other Mage—the man—chilled me in ways I didn’t understand. The combination of his thin, bent nose and his beady eyes, which sat a little too close together, gave him the appearance of a rodent waiting for me to look away so he could bite. Then I realized it was more than just his shifty looks. Something deep within my chest begged me not to trust him. Deception wafted off him like smoke pluming above a campfire.
Could my magic sense deception? Could it guide me away from those with foul intent?
I focused on Johann and tried to ignore the others.
“Kelså was very kind—and most helpful. She’s a skilled teacher. I would love to see her again.”
Johann nodded. “I think that would be wonderful. She could become your mentor, if you would like.”
I smiled for the first time since they arrived. “I’d like that very much.”
“Irina, have you used your magic for anything other than Healing since Kelså left? She told us how you tried but were unable to touch your Light when performing any other task.”
I shook my head. “No, but I haven’t really tried. When word spread about my ability to Heal, people started coming from all over. I barely have time to eat during the day much less try something not related to patients or Healing.”
“What do you know about magic’s other powers? Other things you can do with it?” Johann asked.
I thought a moment. “Well, Kelså called a ball of Light and made herself warm as we walked on a chilly night. Both those things would be nice, I guess.”
The woman, who still hadn’t introduced herself, barked a scornful laugh and traded sneers with Mr. Bent Nose.
Johann scowled at the woman, then turned back to me with a calm expression. “Those are helpful things, yes, but magic can do so much more. Would you like us to give you a little demonstration?”
Now he had my curiosity racing. I stopped rocking and leaned forward. “Of course. I mean . . . please do.”
Johann motioned for the woman to join them on the ground below the porch. She glared a moment but rose with a huff.
Johann extended his right hand, palm upward, and a fist-sized ball of bluish flame blazed to life above it. Then he extended his other hand in the same manner, and a ball of water formed. The water wiggled and swirled, then crackled until the whole thing had frozen into solid, spinning ice.
His eyes never left me, though my eyes were transfixed on the fire and ice.
“That’s—” I started.
“Silly and childish.” The female Mage cut me off with a Telepathic snark in my mind.
“You said that in my head!”
“At least she is not deaf,” the nasty woman mused.