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MAGIC LESSONS

“ W hat do you know about the nature of magic?” Malediction asked her the next morning, embarking on Magic Lesson The First.

They sat outside in two wooden chairs, beneath the dappled shade of wisteria vines, which she’d supplemented with a wide-brimmed hat.

Nobody liked lobster-coloured princesses.

At this distance, she was unhappily attuned to him, as aware of his breathing as her own.

At least Dagomir’s Mixture had saved her from dreaming of him again.

She wasn’t sure whether Mal had chosen this spot so he could keep an eye out for further garden intruders or to keep her away from the goldwork in the house until he could trust she wouldn’t leave it a smoking and / or wooden ruin.

His question made her frown. What did she know about magic?

Most of her knowledge of the subject had been gained through the specific lens of investigating her own curse.

She’d never stepped back to first principles before.

Not that it would have done her much good if she had, since the Isshian libraries had focused on human magic only, and anything connected with fae was held in great suspicion.

It had been enough of a challenge acquiring her slightly forbidden books on folklore.

“I know little of fae magic beyond folk stories,” she said eventually. “Spinning straw into gold and turning frogs into princes and so on.”

His pupils were narrow in the strong light, more catlike than usual. “And human magic?”

She felt her way through her knowledge. “I know human magic comes from different places—from the gods for clerics, from the world for wild mages, and from the world via magical plants for potion makers. There’s a theory by Fabricius that the magic of both clerics and mages is fundamentally the same, but distribution of her work is banned in Isshia.

The temples don’t like the suggestion that their magic isn’t divinely inspired.

Fabricius thinks that magic comes from life, somehow, an unconscious byproduct like the phlogisticated air we exhale, and that it collects in different reservoirs. ”

He blinked. “Phlogisticated air?”

“Yes. Phlogisticated air contains phlogiston. We breathe out small amounts of it. Growing plants absorb it. Combustible substances are rich in phlogiston. That’s the theory, anyway, but it’s true enough that sufficiently phlogisticated air extinguishes fire.

I tried it myself after I read about the experiment.

Scholars believe it’s because air can only contain so much phlogistan before there isn’t room for any more. ”

He tilted his head, the light catching on the metal in his ear—again he’d switched to silver rather than the gold he preferred. Probably wise. Today’s choice of dangling charm was a small, jewelled moth. “And that’s part of human magic? This burning element?”

Gisele laughed. “No, that was me getting distracted. Unless fae breathe differently?”

His eyes brightened. “How exactly did you test it? Capturing the air seems simple enough, but how did you stop it from escaping when you added the fire?”

“Glass bottles and wax seals and being quick about it. But now you are getting off-topic,” she added when he started to rise, as if to go in search of phlogiston-testing apparatus there and then.

He blinked, gave himself a shake, and sat back down.

“Ah. Yes. The human world is fascinating . I must acquire some of these scholars’ works you spoke of.

But fae magic is…” he paused, searching for the right words.

“Fae are magic. For this reason, the first fundamental of fae magic is identity: knowing not simply who you are but how you are positioned in the world.”

“Geographically?”

A swift smile. “That, but also how you are positioned figuratively. You are a princess; that is part of what has shaped you. You are a healer and a scholar, and something of a gardener, I think. These are all aspects of your identity.” His fingers drummed on the arm of his chair, the tips of golden claws extending. “As well as your true name.”

The sight of him growing claws distracted her so well that it took her a moment to process what he’d said. Her head came up as she did. “That’s why losing your name interferes with your ability to do magic.”

His ears quivered as he presumably teetered on the verge of packing them back into the house again in a fit of paranoia.

But after a long pause, he must have decided nobody was lurking behind the rose bushes, eavesdropping—or that their conversation was general enough to be safe.

“Yes. The reason that knowing one’s own identity in fae magic is so important is that it gives you a place to stand, a solid ground from which to direct change, which is the fundamental nature of magic. Change, that is.”

His hands moved as he spoke, unconsciously echoing his points.

More amusingly, so did his tail. He spoke of how magic flowed through the world, connected to all things, constantly moving and pooling and redistributing like water.

Zingiber appeared briefly, rubbed against Mal’s legs, and disappeared again into the undergrowth.

“So, assuming I know my own identity, how do I start?” she interjected when it became clear that Mal might wax lyrical for some time with various nature-based metaphors about branching rivers and shifting wind currents.

He blinked and curled in on himself. “Ah. Yes. My apologies again. I should not have rambled on so.”

She smiled. “No, I enjoyed it, for the most part, but I do need to learn to actually apply all this lovely theory, or risk turning your decor into ash.”

He fished a small, clear globe made of glass out of his pocket.

“This is a training sphere. They’re highly sensitive to magic.

When you direct magic into them, they will react, even to tiny amounts.

Like so.” The sphere glowed with the vanilla and copper of his magic, and then both snapped out.

“The idea is that you first must recognise when you are subconsciously channelling, so that you may from there learn to actively invoke or suppress it.”

He handed the sphere to her. It was heavier than it looked, a cool weight in her palm.

“Focus on the sphere,” he told her. “Let it fill your awareness. Feel the shape of it, the weight, the smoothness. Let the world consist of only the sphere and you. Open yourself to it; focus on the connection between you.”

She’d always been a quick study, so deep-down, she had expected learning magic to go much the same way. And yet, it did not.

After what felt like hours, she still hadn’t made the sphere light up, even when Mal handed her a gold coin to try to provoke her magic. It was highly irritating. She would have kept trying, even as the shadows grew long and her stomach rumbled, but Mal eventually shook his head.

“Some things can’t be forced. That’s enough for today. It will come.” He reached out and touched her arm when she showed no sign of stopping. “Gisele?—”

The sphere burst into flames. She yelped and dropped it, pain and heat spiking through her hand.

Mal moved with sudden and alarming strength, and before the sphere hit the ground, they were behind one of the support poles, wisteria vines whipping around them, his body pressed against hers. The sphere shattered. She jerked.

When it was clear that no further explosions were incoming, he moved away, and her stupid body instinctively went to follow him before she metaphorically picked it up by the scruff and hauled it back. The air smelled of smoke and flowers.

“Your hand?” he asked.

She uncurled it to reveal a reddened palm.

It throbbed. The shock of what had just happened, of what could have happened, hit her all at once, and she sagged back against the support pole, feeling light-headed.

The sphere had exploded . If Mal hadn’t moved them so quickly…

She shuddered at the image of glass splinters piercing flesh.

She needed to get a hold of herself so she could treat the injury.

She would, in just another second or two.

Matter-of-factly, Mal took her uninjured hand and tugged her across the courtyard to the nearest flowing fountain.

“Hand in the water,” he told her.

She could only stare at him.

“It will help with the burn. Put your hand in the water,” he repeated patiently.

“I know that,” she said. It was just…she hadn’t expected him to help her. Not because he was her Malediction but because she’d learnt not to expect anyone to help her unprompted.

“Then stop trying to argue with me and do as you’re told,” he said as he put her hand in the fountain.

She hissed as her hand submerged, but the cool water not only helped with the pain but jolted her out of her frozen nonsense.

Giving herself another mental shake, she pulled herself together.

“ You do as you’re told: go and mash up some waybroad leaves for me into a poultice.

Like I did with the shepherd’s purse for you. ”

“Ah, it’s not that I’m unwilling, but…” He spread his hands helplessly.

“That’s waybroad,” she said, pointing at the weed growing between the cracks of the courtyard.

“Of course.” He did as she bade and returned swiftly with mortar, pestle, and bandages.

“I owe you my apologies once again,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the fountain. The full sunlight turned his hair to flame. “That shouldn’t have happened. I don’t know why that happened.”

“Deeply reassuring statements,” she said, stirring her hand in the water. “There’s something wrong with my magic, isn’t there?”