The wizards didn’t discipline Ronan, unless one considered a strict lecture about his priorities—which should be his studies—discipline. I marveled again that Mage Wolfson was so lenient, so willing to offer favors to his star pupil. My friendship was allowed to him like the tray of sweets the kitchen sent up each day.
Over the next week, Ronan worked on teaching me. Matter and energy were the same thing, he told me, and if one had a wizarding mark, the two could be manipulated in certain ways. All spells needed to be fueled by the magic within a wizard, but many required an extra spark to ignite the spell. He taught me how to draw that spark from the sunlight, moonlight, and fire.
I understood why Ronan said he’d given me only a little of his magic. The crescent-shaped mark above my heart was a tiny thing, not even a quarter of the size of the one on his neck. But Ronan assured me it was magic enough, and with practice, I could work the spells. Learning them required me to memorize words that had sounded like nonsensical babble before. Now my ear heard new sounds and inflections. The words had meaning, a sense to them like a language.
No one noticed the dimming of the sunshine as I practiced. The apprentices performed magic on such a continual basis that even on the brightest day, the castle courtyard often seemed to be in perpetual shade.
Instructing me to tap into energy within myself was problematic. “It’s easier to do if you’re angry,” Ronan said. “Think of something upsetting.”
At the time, I was attempting to lift his heavy wooden desk, one-handed. If the desk could have yawned at my efforts, it would have.
“When I’m with you,” I said by way of explanation, “I’m too happy to be angry.” The housekeeper’s cold indifference toward me and the other girls’ wagging tongues were so completely bearable when Ronan was around.
I thought of him leaving. That made me sad. What little strength I’d mustered drained away. I stepped away from the desk and rubbed the palm of my hand. It was red and protesting the way I’d pitted it against the desk.
“You’ll improve with practice.” Ronan sat on his chair, undisturbed by my failure. “If mastering incantations only took a few days, apprentices wouldn’t have to stay here for years. You’re actually doing quite well. Better than I expected.” High praise considering how quick he was to criticize the other apprentices for their feeble abilities.
By the end of the month, I’d mastered invisibility. I still struggled with extra strength, but I’d learned levitation well enough to amuse myself by floating my chessmen around the board.
Ronan batted at my pieces when they went astray. “You’re horrible at keeping secrets, and we’ll both likely end up dead.”
He was wrong about that. I was successfully keeping one very important secret from him. The crescent-shaped mark on my skin had grown larger as the days passed. Perhaps the same waythat a branch, once grafted, also grows. I now not only had the ability to touch magical texts but to read them as well.
When I was picking up dishes from the apprentices’ rooms and noticed their spell books lying open, how could I not pause to read them? Curiosity was one of my foremost faults.
I daydreamed of what I might accomplish with the use of more magic. Wizards sold their services, and I couldn’t do that, but certainly, I could find ways to be useful, to make something of my life.
I discovered one other thing about my magic. Even though I’d only read an incantation once, I could recall it perfectly any time I thought about it. When Ronan had grafted his mark into me, he’d grafted that ability with it. I wasn’t about to tell him. I was afraid if he realized he’d given me much more than he’d planned, he might take the mark away from me. Having magic, in a small way, made me his equal. And I couldn’t bear to lose that.
It felt wrong to keep such an important secret from him, so I told myself that I would tell him on our wedding day. And if he never proposed, well, that would be his fault, not mine. Magic was a fair compensation for heartbreak as well.
Three months after I learned magic, Mage Wolfson once more requested my presence. This time not in his chambers, but at the top of the west tower room. Only Mage Wolfson ever went there. Not even the housekeeper traversed those stairs unless specifically bidden. No explanation was given to me for the summons.
Something was very wrong. I’d been discovered, caught, and could only hope it was for some small infraction such as reading the books in the guest library. Not for performing magic—not that.
I climbed the stairs as tremulously as if they were the gallows. Slow, heavy steps. My hands grew clammy and I wipedthem against my skirt. By the time I knocked on the tower door, I was ready to throw myself at the wizard’s feet and beg for mercy. He must have some mercy, this man who had allowed a serving girl to befriend one of his apprentices.
I wasn’t certain what Mage Wolfson knew, though, so when he bade me to come in, I slipped inside, head lowered, and held my tongue.
He sat at a desk, writing a letter. The room was larger than his receiving room in the main castle, although not so intricately decorated. The fireplace was plain stone, the chairs near them less ornate. A simple canopied bed stood by the fireplace. Two windows looked out onto opposite sides of the grounds, both surrounded by long, maroon curtains. Good windows for spying on what went on in the courtyard.
My gaze fell on what I’d first assumed to be a dark trunk behind the desk. It was the largest wolf I’d ever seen—twice the size it should have been. It lifted its head to survey me with suspicious eyes.
I froze. The animal may have been a normal wolf once, but it had been turned into something else altogether. Its jaws were wider with rows of sharp teeth, some of which protruded in spikes from the side of its mouth. Its eyes had the strange red glow of an albino even though its coat was black, save for a few gray streaks at its throat.
The beast wore a collar and was tied to a hook in the corner of the room. I was out of reach of the teeth for now.
“Sir?” I managed.
The wizard glanced up at me. I’d expected to see anger or at least censure. His expression was as cold and disinterested as ever. He gestured to a chair at the far end of the room. “Sit.”
He said no more. It wasn’t my place to ask why he’d summoned me. I trod softly across the room and sat on the chair. As soon as I did, I couldn’t move. It was as though I wasglued there. When I tried to ask why he’d done this, I couldn’t open my mouth. Only an alarmed humming escaped my throat.
“Remain quiet until you’re spoken to.” It was an instruction the housekeeper gave us when we dealt with the highborn, and the wizard spoke it as chastisement.
I sat quietly waiting for a command or a question or verdict.
He flicked his wrist and one set of the long maroon curtains moved away from the window, slid across the room, and reconfigured themselves in front of me, completely concealing my presence.