Chapter Twenty-One

I’d brought my students to the auxiliary gym and then split them into groups that I hoped would bring out their best efforts during this afternoon’s training. Nothing fancy. No acolytes. No new content. No pop quiz on casting. Mostly a review of what we’d covered throughout the semester.

They already had their fledgling permits; most had a solid grasp over their casting. They still had time before the second-year Spring Showcase. Courses had gotten more rigorous, but any kid with me as a teacher had already faced the worst of academic expectations their first year, so most of my students—even the slackers—breezed through their coursework.

The fall semester really was a lull period for second-year witches, and I wanted them to enjoy that since applications and interview practices would kick in next semester. Everything would fly by, and before I knew it, they’d be third-years and saying their farewells as the academy threw them into internships.

Having sent the other students off to different stations I’d arranged, I turned to the group at the station I’d assigned myself.

The first group of students I’d decided to work with on rotations was Caleb, Jamius, and Gael.

“Ba-ba-bawk!” And King Clucks, naturally.

Caleb already started eyeing the other setups, especially the rock terrain where I specified branch training would take place.

“You’ll be doing a second round of root training there,” I explained.

“Figured as much.” Caleb nodded.

“First round of root training will be here.”

Gael rolled his eyes, already aware of my intentions and doing his best to shrug off any lesson I might devise where he’d have to levitate. For someone so aloof, he certainly grasped things a lot faster than he let on.

“In fact, even when your group rotates stations, I’d prefer you three to focus on root casting.”

“Not like I have much say in that.” Caleb half-smiled, running a hand through his freshly buzz-cut hair.

“Your specific focus today is strictly banishment.”

“On it.” Caleb scrunched his face, staring off at the forest terrain where I’d set up wisp training. “So, should I go join their group or go to the proctoring office to grab some enchantments?”

Since hitting their second year, I rarely relied on the enchantments signifying demonic energy. It was important they got a real feel for fighting and banishing wisps and fiends at every opportunity they had.

“Neither. I want you to finetune your perfected banishment.” Since working with the acolytes, each had noted an expectation to see Caleb’s perfected root in action, yet all he’d done was showcase strong proficiency in all four. That in itself was great, something any witch branch or not should take pride in, but Caleb had more to offer, and I planned on helping him prove that.

“I-I-I have no idea how to access that.”

“Exactly. So, instead of guessing games, I’m going to be helping you and others by studying the subconscious thought waves during channeling. It helps assess where the difficulty comes from.”

Caleb frowned.

“This won’t be a day one success, but we’ll get there. For the time being, you need a live magical target to banish, so look at your new training partner.” I gestured to Jamius, who’d already pulled out his phone to level up some guild character in an interactive mobile game that required his full attention. “Put it away and start creating duplicates.”

Jamius sighed. “You just said I was doing a root training exercise.”

“You are. You’ll be focusing on maintaining and switching between your four roots while summoning no less than three duplicates at a time. Each one will be expected to have access to one root themselves, but no more.”

“Ugh, why do you hate me?”

I glowered at Jamius until he straightened up and went to work on summoning specifically crafted copies of himself. His work had gotten better, but I needed him to have more fluid control when changing the specifications and access to magic his duplicates had. Giving them identical strength to his own left him too winded for long-term casting.

Once Jamius and Caleb got settled, I turned all my attention onto Gael, who grinned, already prepped with evasive ways to avoid the one root he knew I wanted him to train in.

“All right, Gael.” I huffed. “We’re going to focus on your levitation and only your levitation.” I might’ve sent a persistent buzzing sound to the back of his head, distracting his train of thought so he wouldn’t interrupt me. Underhanded, but a necessity with Gael. “You and King Clucks need to start showing proficiency in each of your roots before moving on to bestial takeovers.”

Part of Gael’s argument came from an interest in enhancing his bestial connection. But he already knew how to channel the rooster’s natural strengths into his body. And while a rooster’s kick might not seem like much, adding that ferocity and redistributing it into the human form gave Gael a physical edge. He wanted to hone those skills, but I wouldn’t budge until he started levitating.

A dark shadow entered the auxiliary gym, carrying with it waves of pain that threatened to drag me into it the same way Tara’s ocean of sorrow did when my telepathy got too close. I quelled my branch some and saw Jamie had finally arrived.

“Mrs. Whitehurst sent me.” He had his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Said I needed to rework my fundamentals.”

“Not exactly.” I grimaced, fighting a frown but unable to smile as a show of encouragement. Gael had already soured my mood, and the chasm of depression radiating off Jamie didn’t help matters. “I was hoping you could actually help one of my students.”

It wasn’t the best pitch, but it sounded smoother than Chanelle’s ‘go practice without the rest of your class with Mr. Frost for the afternoon’ comment that fluttered around Jamie’s surface thoughts. I doubt she worded it that way, but people really did remember things the way they wanted.

“Perfect.” Gael scoffed, eyeing Jamie up and down before turning his gaze back to me. “How am I supposed to keep up with your lecturing when just anyone can walk into the auxiliary gym stealing your attention?”

I’d hoped to have Gael started before Jamie arrived, maybe even get a quick check in on the other students, too. Who was I kidding? Gael would take the bulk of my time in today’s lesson, so I might as well get Jamie started.

“Please tell me he’s not who needs the assistance.”

Gael’s familiar crowed, flapping his wings and pecking the air in Jamie’s direction.

“Yep.” Gael nodded. “ Total tool. ”

“Hold on one second.” I gestured to Jamie, tuning out Gael—as best as anyone could—then flew over toward the rock terrain where I’d set up a station for branch training.

Kenzo and Gael seemed like an impossible pair to split, so I sent them off partnered with Katherine, figuring Gael would make a solid buffer. Kenzo continued pushing his disruption out in waves, breaking apart every single spike Gael hurled from his body. It allowed Kenzo to finetune his precision shots while Gael tested the limits on the recovery time it took new spikes to sprout from his skin.

As expected, Katherine had pulled away from Kenzo and Gael to focus on channeling from her grimoire without making contact with the pages. She didn’t like the strain it put on her mind and body, but what she liked even less was the idea of limiting herself when she knew she had what it took to achieve this level of mastery.

“Katherine, do you mind joining me at the other station?”

“Thought you specifically assigned our groups to maximize our afternoon?” Katherine asked, edge in her voice and still annoyed I’d split her up from her coven mates—mainly the one she couldn’t stop thinking about kissing.

I rolled my eyes. Christ. They’d been dating for nearly a year. How long were they going to sit in the clingy honeymoon pining phase? Besides, the split had more to do with balancing a few others. Like Kenzo and Gael, Layla and Melanie were also difficult to pry apart, but I needed to see Melanie blossom a bit outside her bestie’s radius if she wanted to be successful. And like every student here, she wanted a guild career. That wouldn’t happen if she kept serving at Layla’s altar.

Katherine strapped her grimoire to her hip. “So, where are you sending me?”

I pointed to my station, where Jamie waited. Katherine practically squealed, not even registering Jamie had walked into the auxiliary gym because she only had eyes for Caleb.

Oh, fuck me.

“Soooo, root training?” Katherine fastened the strap on her grimoire, locking it. “Guess I won’t need this.”

We flew back together, and I waited until we landed to steer her attention toward Jamie. “Jamie, we’ve discussed how you’d like to find more ways to help others as a goal toward your training, so I thought working with Katherine would be the perfect exercise in that effort.”

“Wait…” Katherine furrowed her brow. “You took me away from branch training to what?”

“This will be branch training,” I explained. “I was thinking you two could create a hybrid spell. You like those, and it’ll help with your enchantment branch.”

Katherine’s hybrid spells came from combining her magic with someone else’s and storing it in a page of her grimoire. Apparently, it was a lot easier than recreating a specific type of magic.

“Suuuure.” Katherine pulled out her grimoire, flipping to an empty page. “Suppose I’m also used to you changing the expected lesson midway. It’s a very Frosty move to make.”

“Did you just use my name as a verb?” I quirked a brow, catching a distant snicker from Gael and his rooster. Of course, they set the term in motion.

While Katherine set up her book, etching sigils in the corners of the page and chanting a verse that’d help sync their casting, I stepped toward Jamie. He had a befuddled expression that almost hid the sadness in his eyes.

“It’s a great practice for you,” I said.

“Not sure how this helps me help people. I mean, Katherine, sure. But what’s giving her access to my magic in some co-op spell really achieve in the grand scheme of things?”

“For starters, it’s a hybrid spell.” Katherine continued setting up. “Secondly, I might end up using this borrowed magic to save a life one day.”

“Yeah, sure you will.”

“It’s also a great way to practice matching unfamiliar frequencies,” I said. “Something you can continue working on with your coven later. Especially when working with Vik. Their magic might be able to mimic yours, but if you can match their frequency when casting, it’d make it easier on the both of you.”

Jamie almost smiled, then approached Katherine and sat on his knees in front of her grimoire. I took it as a win.

Caleb had wandered further from Jamius’ copies, inching toward Katherine. Distrustful of Jamie despite what the young witch had endured. It seemed everyone struggled to cut Jamie slack, focusing less on their guilt for what happened and more on the rotten person he was the very first semester.

“Shouldn’t you be demonstrating a perfected banishment by now?” I scowled.

“Y-y-you said this isn’t gonna happen in one day. I’ll need way more time—”

“It won’t happen at all if you just stand around gawking. Back to work, Caleb.”

“Yes, sir.”

Now that I’d gotten most of them on task, I scanned the auxiliary gym to ensure no one else’s minds floundered. We’d be rotating stations soon, so I needed to take this opportunity to get my most reluctant student on task.

With a wave of my hand, I lifted Gael off the ground and telekinetically floated him toward me. King Clucks clucked furiously, flapping his wings and shooting me a menacing glare.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Gael flailed his arms and kicked his legs so dramatically it drew Katherine and Jamie’s attention from their hybrid spell. “This is a massive abuse of authority. It’s unconstitutional!”

“We’re not playing games anymore.” I released my grip, dropping him directly in front of me. “You’re going to levitate, or you’re going to tell me why you won’t levitate.”

“I can’t.”

“More like you won’t.”

Gael’s mind twisted to thoughts about Tara’s overlap.

“Don’t you dare.” I glared. “It’s one thing to think it, but don’t even try to make that a reason you can’t fly.”

“I wasn’t gonna.” He sighed. “ Felt dirty just thinking about it. ”

King Clucks puffed his chest at me.

“You need to chill too, bird, or I’ll send you flying next.”

“Ba-ba-ba-bawk.” King Clucks dug his clawed foot into the ground, and I swore for half a second, I could feel his thoughts as he envisioned my head beneath his talons.

“Fine. It’s totally embarrassing, but I sort of hit my head once. Not a super big deal or anything, but King Clucks sometimes, just a little bit, gets worked up about it, and he’s not a fan.”

“I’ve seen him peck you repeatedly, and you’re telling me the rooster won’t let you fly because he’s worried you’ll get injured?” I mean, that much I knew, but I always figured it came down to spiteful envy since chickens couldn’t exactly fly. Then again, as a familiar, King Clucks did have access to the levitation root, too.

“Yeah, but he’s just playing around when he does that.” Gael grimaced. “Maybe it was a bigger deal.”

Gael brushed his fingers through his faux hawk, moving the hairs until he reached a spot where he pointed. I couldn’t see anything through his thick black hair, but he jabbed his finger a few times to indicate the spot.

“Took a big fall and got a souvenir, too,” Gael said, explaining the incident.

The memory rose to the surface of his mind, fully formed and painting the auxiliary gym with the sunset park trail where he fell. Gael described the ordeal in the most lighthearted way, underplaying the severity because he rarely took anything seriously. Even a fatality.

Gael fell and busted his head open at seven. He was badly injured, and no one was there. Blood was everywhere.

“This was way back when King Clucks was still Prince Cheeps-A-Lot,” Gael said. “Thank god they allow familiars to refile their names because the silly things you come up with as kids—cringe.”

His rooster clucked with approval.

“Yeah, because King Clucks, Peckfender of the Unhatched Dozen, is far less cringey.”

“Exactly!” Gael snickered, completely missing my snark. “But you using cringe is just sad, Mr. Frosty.”

I huffed.

“Anyway, I hadn’t had much luck with my roots until King Clucks found me.”

They’d tried to make a day of it, exploring. Every day, in fact. Him and his little chick finding new places to wander and secret spots to perform their magic. Not an uncommon occurrence for young witches who were years away from their formal training but desperate for access to the magic they weren’t legally licensed to practice.

Blood splattered again, and the collision of Gael’s head against the ground looped over and over. Each time just as brutal, painful, terrifying.

King Clucks, the tiny chick, chirped and cheeped and cried out for someone, anyone, but no one followed him back into the woods.

“See. He gets all worked up over nothing.” Gael pointed to his familiar as he recounted the story.

Gael played it off, cool and casual and carefree even as fear swirled along the edges of his memory. The contrasting colors added by the trauma made for a darker palette, turning the park forest into a nightmare world where the trees had menacing faces, and the sunset had a bloody vibrance matching the head injury Gael sustained.

That was when I realized that this palpable fear, this trauma, came from King Clucks’ thoughts. Witches with familiars synced minds for communication, but I rarely connected to the animal. Still, the terror seeped so deeply into Gael’s memory, the two streams of thought overlapped. Despite that fear preventing Gael from levitating, this was a true testament to the bond he shared with King Clucks.

“What happened in the end?” I asked, uncertain how to approach a solution and curious how Gael found help.

“Sexy Enchanter Campbell found me.” Gael waggled his eyebrows. “That’s right. Met her before she was a bigshot guild master.”

That part of the memory was painted in pink hues, lust perhaps, but most likely tied into the pink mist of Campbell’s branch that could harm or heal depending on her temperament. Her mist replaced the blood loss, mended the internal damage, and sealed the gash on his head.

I did the mental math real quick. Based on Gael’s age, this would’ve been when Campbell and Milo were an item, what felt like a lifetime ago, and shortly after his rise to fame from the events during the Night of the Fiend Massacre. I wondered if he had a role in this incident. It was unlikely Campbell had just happened to have been strolling through a park late in the evening and stumbled onto an injured child at exactly the same time he required her magical assistance, but if a clairvoyant boyfriend pointed out a path she should take, then perhaps…

I rolled my eyes. Like Milo would tell me anyway.

“That’s the gist of it.” Gael folded his hands behind his head, flexing his arms in the process. “Unless you know a way to get the mother hen to chill out, I don’t see levitating in my future.”

“Cl-clu-cluck.” King Clucks pecked at the air, clearly offended by Gael’s comment. Ugh. I couldn’t believe I understood the bird. Not his thoughts, not outside that tangible memory, but I’d grown accustomed to the fluctuations in his noises that I knew what each tone meant. Dammit.

And as much as I hated admitting it, Gael was right. He wouldn’t be levitating. Not until I worked on a solution to help King Clucks cope with the trauma associated with his witch partner coming into harm’s way.

“Well?” Gael waited.

I was stumped. “I’m gonna think on this.”

“I might have a solution.” Jamie stood up, dusting off his slacks. “If you wanted to hear it.”

Gael sighed, loud and dramatic. “This outta be good.”

“It’s not like a real solution, but matching frequencies with Katherine reminded me how my sister used to do that when I’d cast. My telekinesis and levitation were pretty rough, so she’d sort of loop hers around mine as an added layer.” He shrugged. “Of course, she had to stay close when doing that. It was like a reverse piggyback ride.”

The image sprang from the hollow pit of his fractured mind. A small boy in a fancy suit for an event flying with his slightly older sister in a sparkling dress. Lena hovered above him, looping telekinesis around him as a young Jamie giggled, leading their direction with the pivot of his arms and legs.

“It’d be super easy for you two—since you’re already so familiar with, er, your, ah, familiar’s magical frequency.” Jamie scrunched his face. “I just mean, maybe he’d be less concerned about you levitating if he had semi-control. Well, full control. King Clucks looks like a full control type of guy.”

“Hmmmmm.” Gael strummed his fingertips across his chin, a fa?ade of deep thought when he and I both knew the only thing on his mind right now was inappropriate recollections of Guild Master Campbell.

“BAWK!”

“It would seem King Clucks approves of your idea,” Gael said. “We’ll try it out. Maybe.”

“Now might be a good time.” I frowned.

“Fine, fine. We’ll get to work.” Gael strutted off, thoughts wrapped into a one-sided conversation with his familiar. Well, as usual, I could only hear his side of the discussion.

“That was a great idea, Jamie.” I turned and tried to soften my dour expression.

“Helping people is a great motivator, right?” Jamie almost smiled, not from our talk, not from the suggestion he offered Gael, but rather the surfacing memory of joy spent with his sister.

It hovered above the darkness of his mind, illuminating the shadows and cracks of his inner core, and for the first time since I’d seen his mind freed of the chimera, it appeared some of the damage had slowly mended itself.

He had a long journey ahead of him, one I hoped to offer assistance on in any small way.

Gael watched us, already searching for a way to avoid his new learning objective. But the way his mind shifted to contemplation and conversations with Tara, and the curiosity in his thoughts bubbled, I didn’t believe this was the worst of his slacker ways.

Between his impulse and perhaps a bit of kindheartedness, I finally cracked that smile I’d been holding back when the idea in his head turned into words. “You know, Jamie, I’m having a party. Not a big thing. Well, sort of. Everyone’s basically going. It’d be weird not inviting you, so like, if you wanted to show up or whatever. Probably wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be real chill.”

Given the time left, I went to check on the other groups and let Gael and Jamie have their awkward exchange, relieved Jamie had found a bit of joy buried in his memories and maybe a little in his future.