Trainings

TRAININGS

I squint at the translated pages of the first Wendall witch’s grimoire. If I blur the words a little, will they make more sense?

Aspen thinks studying my ancestral magic will help me figure out how to explain my lightning-summoning process to the others, but what am I supposed to explain?

How to connect to the ethereal? I don’t understand it myself. Or how to turn that connection into physical lightning? Do I need a physics book to explain static electricity and the laws of attraction to witches?

“Ugh, why is this so hard?” Translating pure instinct into teachable steps is beyond frustrating.

This doesn’t feel like a beginner-level test at all .

“Having trouble, Rowe?” Ginny asks, her almond-shaped black eyes tight with concentration as she and Ambyrlynn practice manipulating spheres of water in the air between them.

“Yeah.” I sigh. “But that’s nothing new.”

I turn to study them. We had all gathered at the community center to practice for our tests. I had also brought a bucket full of fresh fulgurite, thanks to Haut’s digging skills on the beach a few nights ago.

Since I could ensure lightning hit every rod, I got a lot more than last time. The downside, though, is that the strikes weren’t as strong as real lightning, resulting in many fragile spiderweb pieces.

Everyone had been excited to play with it, though, so that was cool.

But while everyone else is making progress, I’m only a fifth of the way through my task. Tired, I rub my eyelids and blink away the sparkles dancing across my vision.

Ambyrlynn furrows her brow, stabbing at a water orb like she’s wielding an invisible rapier. It wobbles and splashes to the floor. “Dang it!”

The sparkles in my vision coalesce around Ambyrlynn, a shimmering trail of magic whipping through the air. I tilt my head. It reminds me of the way I can see the town’s barrier, but this magic is unique to Ambyrlynn. Like a magical signature.

It stabs toward the water on the ground, trying to gather it up. But you can’t collect water with a spear.

“Hey, Ambyrlynn, I think I see the issue. You’re jabbing your magic like this.” I stab my finger at the air. “But you need to do it more like this.” I make a scooping motion. “You can collect water on your fingertip, but it will take forever doing it one drop at a time. You need to use a cup.”

Ambyrlynn lights up. “Ohhh, I get it! Thanks, Rowe!”

She adjusts her hold on her wand and, eyes closing, she moves her arm in fluid arcs. This time, her magic flows out in more of a curved paddle shape, scooping the water off the floor.

It wobbles and forms back into a sphere that she guides through the air. “This is so much easier!”

Ginny and I clap and beam at her with pride.

If only figuring out my own test was this easy.

I turn back to the notebook with a flutter of hope in my chest. There must be a pattern here I’m missing. Unless everyone was wrong about the first Wendall witch being ethereal.

If that’s the case, I’m screwed.

“Okay, I think this will work!” Harper finishes adding her notes to the spell we’ve been working on over the last two days.

While I might still be struggling with the lightning spell, I’ve been making progress with the three co-op spells Gael added to my test. Aris had been eager to participate, and I had overnighted a box of bubble-wrapped fulgurite to the town nearest to Silver Hollow.

She had picked it up and had already emailed me an entire list of ideas for how to use it.

I abandon the pots of soil I’ve been dragging around to join Harper and study the newest iteration of my joint spell with her. It happens to coincide with her own test, so she’s been motivated to get it finalized.

The concept we came up with, based on Aspen’s suggestion, will resemble a wand. If it works, then sticking it into the center of a garden will draw the earth’s natural magic. The spell involves a lot of drawings, which I left to Harper’s more skilled hand.

It details out the size of the stick to use, how to affix the fulgurite to the end, and the magical symbols needed to make it all work .

We’d discussed the porosity of wood and its potential for degradation, but in the timeframe we have, metal was out. Besides, Gael never said it had to stand the test of time. It just has to work and be repeatable for other witches to follow.

I nod with excitement. “This is the one. We can work on making it after you go identify which of the pots has poisonous soil.”

She smiles as she heads over to the clay pots. “This is kind of fun, isn’t it?”

Hand on my lower back, I stretch, my spine popping. “Say that after you’ve dragged those heavy things around to mix them up.”

She laughs. “But then I’d know which is the bad one.”

Harper stops in front of the pots and studies the earth samples I had prepared earlier. Her nose scrunches as she hovers a hand over each pot, her magic reaching out to assess the soil composition.

“Ugh, this one reeks of poison!” She points to a pot filled with dirt identical to the others. “Any plant stuck in there would shrivel up in a day.”

I check the bottom of the pot and clap. “Correctamundo! You’re five for five!”

“It almost feels like cheating.” She glances over her shoulder toward the door. “Shouldn’t this be harder? Your test has so many parts to it.”

“Tell me about it.” I blow out a breath. “Think I’m being punished for the Grim Project?”

She lifts her hands in a helpless gesture. “I hope not. As a witch without a grimoire, what you’re doing would give me so many more possibilities to expand my craft. Without textbooks to follow, we need an open-source reference option like the Grim Project.”

“I should have had you pitch the idea to the council people.” I grab our bucket of sticks collected from the edge of the woods around my house. “My winning personality didn’t help sell it.”

“I’m sure you did fine.” She gives my arm an encouraging pat that does little to make me feel better about my performance.

Nothing to do about it, though. Only path forward is to prove that the Grim Project has a place in witch society.

“Hello, hello!” Tris calls from the outer area. “Dr. Lopez kicked me out of the office again, so I thought I’d come join the study group!”

“We’re back here!” Hand dipping into my pocket, my fingers close around a soft bean bag .

Tris swoops through the door, a smile on his face. “There’s my favorite?—”

I throw the bean bag, and a gust of wind bursts out of Tris, knocking it to the side.

“Ha! You think I wasn’t expecting an attack— Omph!” He yelps as the second bean bag nails him in the forehead. He staggers back, rubbing his face with a rueful chuckle. “Guess I still need to work on that, huh?”

Laughter bubbles up my throat. “You think? Here, let me kiss it better.”

Eyes sparkling, Tris bends so I can press my lips to his forehead before he takes in the supplies on the table. “What are we working on today?”

I release his face. “Harper and I finalized our spell, so now we need to test it out.”

“You have good timing,” Harper adds. “We need someone who’s not familiar with the spell to test it out as well, to make sure our thought process translates to someone who doesn’t know what it should do.”

“Good idea.” I nudge the bucket of sticks toward Tris. “Put those nimble fingers to work and get carving.”

On Friday, I sit on Delilah’s back porch, watching her frown at the patch of dirt she cleared for her new garden.

Her silver-streaked auburn curls glint in the afternoon light as she waves her hands over the soil, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Come on, you stubborn rocks. Rise and greet the sun.”

A few pebbles wobble halfheartedly, but the rest of the stones remain embedded in the earth.

She sighs, her shoulders slumping with weariness.

I cup the crystal we created in my hand and whisper, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re an amazing witch who will make those rocks your bitch.”

Delilah’s head lifts, her hand touching the sister-crystal hanging from around her neck, and she casts a wan smile in my direction. “I know, I just feel like I should be able to do this. I’ve been working with gardens my whole life.”

“You’ll get there,” I assure her. “How would you usually dig rocks out of a garden?”

“I’d use a garden fork to loosen the soil, then a rake to collect small rocks, or a shovel for bigger ones.” She wipes sweat from her brow. “My mother always said not to waste magic on things I can do with everyday tools.”

“Your mom sounds like a woman trying to keep a kid busy digging rocks.” I rest back on one hand. “Try to do the same thing with magic that you’d do with tools. Don’t focus on the rocks first. Focus on the soil.”

Nodding, she props her hands on her hips as she considers this new idea.

Eyes closing, she takes a deep breath and spreads her fingers over the soil. My vision unfocuses, watching the magic pulse gently beneath her skin. It trickles from her palms like raindrops, peppering the soil and stirring it.

The ground churns, loosening the packed dirt. Slowly, rocks push their way to the surface, gleaming in the light.

Delilah’s lashes lift, a delighted grin spreading across her face. “I did it!”

I pump my arms into the air. “You’ve got this! You’re going to ace your test.”

As I watch Delilah continue to coax the rocks from the earth, nagging thoughts tug at the back of my mind. While I’ve been helping everyone else train for their tests, I still haven’t completed mine.

My joint spells with Delilah and Harper are finished, and Aris sent me a tracking number with her charm on its way. But those are all secondary to my personal spell of how to cast lightning.

I’ve come up with a few based on my ancestor’s spellcrafting methods, but when I try to explain it to the coven, it just confuses them. It’s like trying to describe a dream, where the more I focus on the details, the more convoluted it sounds.

It sure would be nice to be able to run it by Aspen. He at least somewhat understands ethereal magic. But he’s a no-go, which leaves me unsure if this is a me problem or an issue of trying to get elemental witches to understand the ethereal.

What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t translate my magic into something teachable, something others can learn from? Will I be the only witch to fail my test?

“Well, if it isn’t my two favorite women,” a voice says from behind me.

I whip around, throwing a beanbag.

Ros catches it with lightning-fast reflexes, and I grimace. “Sorry. Thought you were Tris for a second.”

He tosses the ball back. “I came to walk you home, if you’re ready to go.”

Delilah waves a hand. “Go on. I’m going to practice a little more, now that I have the hang of this.”

“Okay, don’t push yourself too hard.” I raise a hand to Ros, who helps me up.

Ros links our fingers together as we head around to the front of Delilah’s house. “Mind if we stop at the butcher shop on the way home?”

Confused, I peer up at him. “Don’t we have enough meat in the basement freezer?”

“We do.” His tongue flicks out to skim along his bottom lip. “I wanted to get some blood.”

My feet come to a stop on the sidewalk. “What? Why?”

“I can’t test out the rings Aris sent if I keep feeding on you and Tris.” He tugs me back into motion. “It will already be hard with the sunlight spell in place. We may not know for sure until it wears off.”

“That makes sense, I guess.” I drag my feet on the sidewalk. “But I’m not a fan.”

With a gentle tug, he pulls me against his side. “It’s not my preference, either, but these charms could be a game changer for vampire kind. So, unless you want me to go find vampires who weren’t here during the spell… ”

“Ugh.” I throw my head back. “Your sense of duty is so admirable!”

A chuckle comes from him. “Thank you?”

“It’s not sexy at all.”

Leaning down, he nuzzles the side of my face. “No?”

With a groan, I tilt my head to the side. “Fine, it’s a little sexy.”

He straightens. “Don’t be trying to tempt me with your vein right after I said I’m going on the bagged stuff.”

I sigh. “Fine, but you’ll be crawling back, begging for the magic juice within a week.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” He stops in front of the butcher shop. “Want to come in or wait out here?”

A shudder goes through me as I stop in front of the glass doors. Ever since Rodney died, I haven’t been able to bring myself to visit the butcher. “I’ll wait.”

With a quick kiss on the top of my head, he ducks through the doors.

Shivering, I rub my hands together and stuff them into my pockets, my breath fogging in the cold air. To keep my blood moving, I pace the sidewalk toward the clinic before turning and heading back the way I came .

Before I reach the doors, arms come around me, lifting me from my feet. “Caught you!”

I squeak and flail for my bean bag, but Tris’s arms around mine lock my hands against my sides.

“Victory!” He bounces up and down, making my head bobble. “The threat has been neutralized!”

“Stop,” I groan. “I’m going to puke!”

He pauses. “Are you lying?”

“No.” I moan loudly and make a gurgling noise.

He drops me like a hot potato, backing away, and I pelt him with bean bags.

“You liar!” He runs away from me, covering his head. “I’m never trusting you again!”

“Victory will never be yours!” I reach into my pockets and find them empty. “Learn to use your wind on instinct or lose the war!”

He spins back toward me and narrows his eyes in concentration. A wind kicks up, blowing dead leaves from the sidewalk as the fallen bean bags rise into the air.

My hands come up, and I back away. “Don’t you dare.”

The bean bags start spinning. “Liars should be punished.”

“Really, I was going to puke…”

“Liar! ”

The door to the butcher shop jingles, and I spin, racing to duck behind Ros.

A second later, he grunts as beanbags slam into his chest, and he drops the plastic bag he carries.

It’s a massacre, blood spraying across the sidewalk.

Everyone stands frozen, staring at the mess, before Ros turns his head toward me. “Is this revenge for not biting you?”

“No…” I back away and yell, “Run, Tris!”

As I take off, passing Tris, he chases after me with a shriek. “It’s not my fault!”

“Run faster!” I encourage him without slowing.

“I don’t need to run faster!” Tris’s long pace carries him past me. “I just need to stay ahead of you!”

“Traitor!” A glance over my shoulder shows Ros closing in. “It was an accident, I swear!”

He flashes his fangs. “Then stop running, my love.”

Gulping, I pump my short legs faster.