The Words in the Magic

Chapter 1

"You can't hide in the toilet forever." Emerald turned around to face me "What did you think was going to happen? We've been through this before Casey, you can't pretend like this!" As much as I hated to admit it, Emerald, Em for short, was normally right. She had a lot more experience with all this than I did.

"I'm just going to do it Em, why can't I?" Em gave me the disapproving look that she'd been giving me a lot recently, it had almost become second nature to her.

"Do you need me to give you a list of reasons? Or are you going to stop living in denial? Casey stop!" I snapped my head back towards her at the sound of her alarmed tone, and realised she was looking at the symbols which had started glowing on the wall behind me which had started to get brighter and brighter along with my anger. "This is why Cas." Em looked at me apologetically. That was another look I had been getting a lot recently.

I hated that look. Everyone that knew me and knew our secret had been giving me that look. My anger flared slightly. It wasn't Em's fault. But that didn't make it any easier. I took a deep breath and focused on controlling my emotions. I had been blessed, I was a lucky one, I couldn't complain. I wasn't allowed to complain. That's all I had been told when I first started showing my powers.

Emerald was my guardian. My angel. I don't just mean that in the sense that she's a great friend and she's always there for me. Emerald had been assigned to me when I was born, unbeknown to my family or to me. We had become fast friends when we were younger and had been practically inseparable since then. Now that I had started to show my powers, Em would be key in helping me train and control them, while helping me adapt to all the new rules that I had to follow, which is why I was currently hiding in a toilet stall at school.

"Em, you know I've been building myself up to this for months! I finally got the courage to ask Alfie out, and now you're telling me that I'm not allowed to?" I turned to face my best friend. "Explain this to me again, why do I end things with Alfie?"

"Magus are allocated a soulmate at birth, trying to avoid that fate will only lead to harder times for you later on Cas, you know this already." Em moved past me to lean against the row of sinks. "Someone is about to come in, I can't stop you carrying on with Alfie, Cas, but just know that it will be hard for you, and for Alfie when you inevitably have to break his heart." Em finished just as another girl wandered into the bathroom. As an angel, Em was older than she appeared. Even though she was in the body of a 17 year old, angels wouldn't be assigned their first Magus until they had completed their 100 years of training at least. I was Em's first Magus, and Em had told me that she was around 110 years old, which was relatively young for angels. Em had complete control over her powers, some of which I shared with her. For example, I should have been able to sense that girl approaching the bathroom, but I was too distracted in my own head to be looking.

While I was thinking of this, Em had turned to look in the mirror as the girl had walked in, and fixed her long golden brown hair which had just started to reach the middle of her back. Her eyes were watching me in the reflection as if warning me not to say anything which would give my secret away to anyone else. I had a year left of school and couldn't mention any of my newfound powers to anyone outside the sect. I sighed as I pretended to look busy, looking at myself. My auburn hair once again caught me off-guard. As part of my introduction, when I first accessed my powers, my appearance had changed. My original mousey brown, frizzy hair had transformed into the new copper colour which still caught me off guard each time I saw it. My green eyes had changed to the golden brown that luckily no one had questioned me on. The hair could be explained by dye, the eyes, not so much. My skin had become flawless. As I found myself staring at the mirror again, the thought that maybe all this wasn't so bad went around my head again. Until Em's voice cut through my thoughts.