Everyone sits at their tables, speaking in hushed tones, darting glances at her. She feels as if her skin is on fire with the combined force of all of their eyes.
A Switch, Anna explains, is a person who can turn magic off and on. They have another person in the compound who can see in the dark; Trenna isn't the only one. But they can't turn it off. No one can turn their magic completely off. No one except her. There hasn't been a Switch in the compound for a few hundred years. Anna's eyes glint with barely contained excitement as she speaks, lending her an animation that suits her more than her usual sullen silence.
Kieran's magic is built into who he is; he uses it to move his chair, to reach things that no one else can, and he does it without thinking. Jack's control over the light is as simple as breathing, and can sometimes be unpredictable, flickering with his emotions. Hugo has a heightened sense of smell. That will be with him forever, and he can do nothing about it. Pierce can move himself through time and space. He can walk, like everyone else, but the magic is still with him. Liam, Trenna thinks, has the worst of it. His thoughts can be broadcast to everyone or anyone nearby if he thinks strongly enough, if he doesn't keep his thoughts behind a carefully constructed mental wall.
But she can turn it off. Apparently, she can turn it all off. And on.
"How am I meant to do that when I can hardly control my own magic?" she asks, running a hand through her hair, her top pulling up at her hip.
Pierce looks at her and she tugs it down self-consciously. "Practice," he says.
YOU ARE READING
Fanfare
FantasyAll her life the fire wall has been standing. Trenna has been enclosed, her whole city circled by flames. She always thought that her city was the world. But then everything changed. Pierce, a childhood friend, is not dead after all, and her mothe...
