Page 35 of Hunted

That was the kind of thing my parents liked to do, and they would always drag me to watch those plays with them. The stories were boring, the acting was dull, the costumes… actually, the costumes were great, but only because my mother loved to involve herself in as many of the productions as she could, at least as far as costumes went.

I was lucky I had Tallin with me. He seemed to understand my situation, and no matter what I did, or how I was feeling, he was always there to help me feel better. To tell me it was okay to feel confused or emotionally lost. That it was okay to hole up in my bedroom while I figured things out.

Hedidn’tappreciate my constant tinkering with Earthly magic, though. But I had to try. I had to do something. It was the only thing I could do, and I didn’t even really know how to do it. Earthly magic was complicated to learn. It required practice, and patience, and discipline. These weren’t things I was known for, and the constant mistakes only served to aggravate me, and push my progress back further.

There was something inside me. I knew there was. I had felt it, had used it, and over the last couple of days, I had been working at it; this other power that lived in me. I was starting to realize, to learn, that Earthly magic was an art form more than it was a tool, and that was the primary difference between the two kinds of magic.

Arcadian magic was frivolous, and fancy, and colorful. Human magic needed to serve a purpose, otherwise it wouldn’t work at best, or be destructive at worst. Itwaspowerful, though. Today I wanted to find out justhowpowerful.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Tallin said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because you could get us both into a lot of trouble.”

“You? Why you?”

“If I don’t stop you, then I’m an accomplice.”

“I’ll say you tried, and that I overpowered you.”

“That makes me look meek.”

“Orit makes you look brave?”

Tallin shook his head. “Why do you need to do this now, anyway?”

“Because Helen and Pepper have gone grocery shopping, and I don’t think Evie will tell on me if she catches me.”

“You sound very sure of yourself.”

“And I am. She’s been kind of like a big sister, so far.”

“That can change if you put people’s lives at risk.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whose life is at risk.”

“Considering I’m the only creature in the room with you, I would have to saymine.”

“Relax. You’re safe.”

“Could I get that in writing?”

“No. Anyway, please give me a moment, I need to concentrate.”

“I still don’t like this,” Tallin said, as he scrambled up and along my bed. “If you need me, I’ll be under your pillow.”

I shook my head and turned to face away from him. I was in my bedroom, Helen and Pepper were gone, Evie was downstairs, and Valerian was in his room. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I had a singular goal here; I wanted to make the stuff in my room levitate.

I had been practicing for the last few days, picking erasers up with my mind, twirling pencils around in midair, drinking tea with only my thoughts. That last one had been messy, Tallin hadn’t appreciated the lukewarm tea I spilled all over the bed, but I needed to practice.

Right now, though, I didn’t want to just lift one thing. I had lined eight different objects along the small desk in my room. One teacup, two erasers, a pen, a small teddy bear I had found in the closet, a pencil, an old book, and a dice I had found in the couch.

These objects were all of different sizes, weights, and dimensions. I knew it was going to take a lot of discipline and concentration for me to lift them all at once, but I had already been able to move each of these individually, so how hard could it have been?

I placed the piece of paper on the table, took a couple of steps back, and raised my arms. “Here goes,” I said, and with a gentle movement of my wrist, I channeled my will, reaching out to the sigil I had drawn and trying to funnel power through it.

It didn’t matter how many times I had done this already, the sensation was still strange, still a little alien. I was drawing on magic I had barely ever used before, flexing a muscle I didn’t even know I had until a few days ago. I shut my eyes and opened my mind, trying to visualize the objects in front of me moving, levitating, floating.