Page 31 of Is It Wrong to Escape My Fate? (Dealing With Fate #1)
“Correct. Every spell starts with these three components, but the better you get at casting and understanding it, the less you need them. For example, a basic Form Water spell.” Professor Strom held out his palm, and without any gestures or chants, an orb of water formed and floated over it. Everybody gasped.
“Did I use any components?” he asked, and the answer was a resounding “no” from my classmates. However, I thought not, so I stayed quiet. “Miss Bea, you don’t agree?” Everyone turned to face me, and I felt the heat creep up my neck.
“Water spells can use the water in the air as implement if there’s no body of water nearby, so I thought …” I trailed off, my cheeks getting warmer at the unwanted attention.
Professor Strom granted me a rare smile.
“That is a possibility. Good thinking, Miss Bea.” He turned to the rest of the class as I slid down in my seat in an attempt to hide under my desk.
“It depends on the skill of the caster. It might seem to not use any components, but Water magic can pull out the vapor from the air. However, a sufficiently skilled mage can use his mana to create water. It’s the foundation of Creation magic. ”
He made the orb vaporize. “And to answer the question, I used my mana.”
Great, way to emphasize my defiant answer. I pouted a little.
The rest of the class was the professor teaching us the correct gesture and incantation for Form Water, while a bowl of water was on our desk.
Dahlia got it on her first try. “I had training at home,” she said.
Claude and Elias succeeded after a few tries, while I could barely hold the orb shape together before it broke apart again.
Casting a spell was fascinating. With every movement of my hands, and the words spoken from my lips, I could feel the pull of mana from my body attaching to the water, trying to shape it.
I knew I was doing it right, but there must be something else I was missing.
Was it possible my outsider status was affecting my magic?
The class ended with no further progress for me. But now that I knew the gesture and the chant, I could probably practice it at my dorm. This was a good way to test my magic capability. After all, if I couldn’t even cast a basic Water spell, what chance did I have with Teleportation?
“Miss Bea, a word.” Professor Strom made me stay behind again while Dahlia waggled her eyebrows at me. I shot her a glare while Claude and Elias lingered and had to be pulled out by my friend.
This was great. I could return his coat.
When it was only the two of us, I stood by while he leaned his hips on his desk, looming over me. “Is there something wrong, Professor?”
“I noticed your spellcasting,” he started, folding his arms over his chest. “You're doing the gestures and the chant perfectly, but the orb doesn’t hold.”
Exactly the same as my observation.
“Maybe I don’t have enough mana to pull it off?” It wouldn’t be unheard of; Lady Valeria, Vincent’s older sister, was one of the more famous examples. But of course I didn’t want that for myself — I needed a fuckton of mana to cast a successful Teleportation.
“No, I can —” He paused in the middle of a sentence before catching himself. “You have the mana. Something else is interfering. Internally is my guess.”
Oh, fuck. Was I right in my theory? Did somehow being literally out of this world affect my magical capabilities?
“A block …” he murmured, studying me. “Bea, where did you learn how to defend against Psychic magic?”
The who-what-now?
“Judging by your expression, you don't know what I’m talking about,” he mumbled solemnly. “Psychic magic is already a rarity in this realm. To form defenses against it is even rarer. My suspicion: the same factor that lets you block against Psychic magic is disrupting your own magic.”
That was a fair theory, but one detail stood out to me. “Why do you think I have defenses against Psychic magic?”
He was silent for a few moments, his brown eyes darting everywhere on my face. And then he sighed, clinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “This is well-kept information. My Unique is Telepathy. It lets me read thoughts and communicate through the mind only, and it doesn’t work on you.”
Oh, my god. I didn’t realize it was possible to have telepaths! Not a piece of literature had mentioned it so far. I had read about Psychic magic though, like the ability to Command someone or alter their mood, but not outright telepathic conversations.
“Did the communication work both ways?” I wondered.
“In a way, yes,” the professor answered, a light cheeriness in his voice. “Since I can read thoughts. I send you a message telepathically and you respond through your mind, which I will read. Very convenient.” He bit his lip before adding, “If it actually worked on you.”
The way he bit his lip distracted me for a second, because holy shit nobody had the right to look that good while biting their lip. Blinking out of my trance, I looked back into his eyes. “I don’t know if there’s any block. I don’t feel weird or different.”
Lies. It was a good thing he couldn’t hear my thoughts.
He tapped a finger on his forearm, and I only just noticed he had taken his coat off at some point during our practice and rolled up his sleeves. I could see the veins on his arms as his muscles flexed with his movements, oddly erotic.
Getting wet for a professor wasn’t proper, but hell if I cared if it was only in my mind.
Professor Strom cleared his throat, and I moved my gaze back to his face again. “That’s something we have to figure out,” he murmured, his voice lowering. “It won’t do well for your future as a mage.”
He was right. “Should I take extra classes under you, professor?”
His eyes lowered to where my hands were clutching the straps of my satchel. I couldn’t help but feel extra conscious of how he studied my every movement. “Under me, yes,” he chuckled lowly, and the delicious sound shot directly to my clit.
It wasn’t my imagination only — that was an innuendo, right? If so, how totally inappropriate. But I didn’t give a fuck.
His eyes went down even more, focusing on the skin of my exposed thighs, that I pressed them together out of habit. “When are you available, Bea?”
“Thursday afternoons,” I answered almost immediately. Calm the fuck down, Bea! It was only magic tutoring. Nothing else.
His arms flexed again, crossed over his chest, as if he had stopped himself from latching on to something. With a sigh, he mumbled, “I’ll be seeing you Thursdays after lunch. My office.”
A solo class with Professor Strom could only mean good things for my progression as a mage. That was the only point of it. I didn’t like how my schedule got more stuffed with things that cut away from my research time, but it was all to maintain the image of a good, obedient, noble daughter.
“Before I forget,” I beamed, fishing in my magic bag for his coat. I pulled it up neatly folded. “Your coat, professor. I’d like to say I washed it personally, but I’d be lying.” And I didn’t want to add any more than I had to. “Thank you again for helping me. And for the tutoring.”
“Uriel,” he stated. “When it’s just the two of us, I want you to call me by my name.”
I nodded. “Uriel. Thank you.”
What was it with these men and insisting on being called by their first names? It was adorable, to an extent. Winston was definitely not.
As I handed the coat to him, there was a quick moment where our fingers touched, and I swore I felt a jolt of electricity travel down my arm that I shuddered. I looked up in time to see him swallow thickly, and I was convinced it wasn’t only me who felt it.
I bit back a whimper. This was bordering too close to very inappropriate. But I wouldn’t lie to myself and say I didn’t have the hots for him because he was, in fact, seductive.
“Go eat your lunch,” he whispered, and that dismissal broke the spell forming between us. I almost ran out before dragging Dahlia with me, who was snooping behind the door.
“That look of pining from Professor Strom was so delicious,” Dahlia snickered as we headed briskly for the dining hall.
I frowned. “What ‘look of pining’?”
“As you were escaping his clutches,” she continued giggling. “He looked really regretful, Bea. Regret that he let you go so easily.”
“You and your fantasies,” I scoffed, and she laughed even more. It was a silly fantasy, but I wouldn’t decline it if it became true.
When she calmed down, she asked, “Kidding aside, your conversation looked really serious. What was it about?”
“I need a magic tutor because something weird is going on with my spellcasting.”
She grinned mischievously. “And I suppose he volunteered for it. Of course he would. That’s extra personal time with you, you minx!”
“Unbelievable.”
“I’m living vicariously through you!”