Free Magic (complete)

Chapter 10

Anders woke to a growling stomach. His body was stiff from sleeping in a chair. Lifting his head, he peeled off the paper that stuck to his face and looked around. His desk was littered with notes and he smiled remembering his newfound motivation. He yawned, stretched, and looked out his door to see late afternoon sun glowing orange through the windows.

"Food then." He closed his door and gave it a good jolt of power, then made his way downstairs. As he entered the dining hall hushed murmurs drew his attention, bringing him fully awake.

Normally the hall was crowded at this time, there was a window of time in which you could be served food after all. It was crowded now, but there were no mages quietly reading books while trying to eat. None of the very young mages were eating in groups while showing off what tricks they learned. In fact, there was no casual discussion going on at all. Everyone in the hall was hunched over tables, talking in hushed tones and barely touching the food. Anders had never seen anything like it in the seven years he had been at Whitethorn.

He waited in the small line to the kitchen window that handed out food. He was given a bowl of soup and a piece of bread, which he took to an empty seat in the middle of the room. For all he didn't like to talk to the other mages, it was the best place to listen.

"Heard it wasn't really him." Anders heard the whispers from the table to his left.

"Then who would do it? You can't make anything out of powdered components and stones, they don't mix!" Hissed a young woman in yellow.

"Surely the council knows what they are doing." A man to the table in front of Anders scoffed at his companions.

"Hello there, may I take a seat?" A short woman with frizzy red hair set her soup bowl across from Anders.

"Oh, yes." Anders scooted his bowl back to make room. He recognized her as a fairly eccentric orange robed mage that was always causing clouds of smoke or eruptions of lights from her room. More often than not she was seen alone.

"I'm Deidre. You're the boy who saw the thief right?" Her eyes bulged wide as she waited for an answer.

"Yes, I guess. Not well though, he wore a hood." Anders was now very uncomfortably trying to eat his meal so he could leave.

"So do you believe what they say? About Bo?" She tore her bread into tiny pieces and dropped them into her soup.

"I'm not sure. What are they saying?" Anders had never felt more aware of his choice to be fairly solitary. He didn't' know who Bo was, and he certainly was never in the loop on Whitethorn gossip unless he ran into Ghilda.

"Bo! The kitchen boy who stole all those things. Only some are saying he didn't." She stirred her crumbled bread into a soggy mush. "They say he was seen in town that night so he couldn't have taken anything. But it's his word against all those soldiers. So what do you think of it?"

"I don't know." This was certainly news to Anders. "What do you think?"

"Of course the boy didn't do it. He's always been the sweetest if you talk to him." She tipped her bowl back and swallowed the whole thing in one impressive try. "I'm going to get to the bottom of it!"

Anders watched her stomp out of the hall, dropping her bowl off to the kitchen window. He wasn't really sure what to think of her, but she did raise a lot of questions. At least he knew what the commotion was, this would be the best gossip Whitethorn had to mull over in some time. He quietly finished his own food and returned to his work upstairs.

There was a lot to consider. If it wasn't Bo, who did it? And who would frame a kitchen boy? His thoughts carried him to the top floor before he noticed. The usually empty hallway however, was not empty today. A figure in brown robes was sprawled across the floor in front of his door.