Breaking Magic

Chapter Four: Adam

"What?" El exclaims so loudly that I have to pull the handheld phone away from my ear. "You mean there really are people out there who want to use you like some kind of... super weapon?"

"I guess so," I reply, throwing myself down onto my bed and staring up at the ceiling. I hadn't heeded Ms. Cross's advice and had skipped dinner entirely, my stomach too twisted in knots to eat, but now I was regretting it. My stomach growled loudly, and I wondered if Mrs. Pendle might have left something out for me in the kitchen before heading home for the night anyways. "Have you heard about the Magician's Rebellion Front?"

"The Magician's Revolution Front, and yes, of course I have. Everyone has, including you, though you probably don't pay much attention to it when it comes up in conversation since you don't have to listen to parents who are constantly bickering about politics at home."

I can hear the sound of bickering going on in the background as El speaks as a matter of fact, though whether it's between her parents or her siblings, it's impossible to tell.

"So your parents talk about them then? Are they really... is this something I should be really worried about, or what?"

"Well..." El says, and she hesitates. "They certainly don't sound like the good guys, though from what I've seen on the news they certainly think they are. Then again, I don't think the Council are good guys either, so I don't give a flying fig if they both go and blow each other up."

"Yeah, but I don't want to get caught in the middle of any blowing up," I point out.

"For what it's worth, I think Ms. Cross is wrong. I don't think your only two choices are run away to Mexico or stay in high school indefinitely. What it sounds like to me is that she's just trying to keep you hidden, you know? Ship you off to another country where the bad guys can't get to you, or keep you at school where she can keep and eye on you all the time. I'm sure she means well, but you can't live your life like that forever."

No, I can't.

"There's got to be another option," she says, and I can practically hear the cogs turning in her mind from here. "At the rate you're going now, it could be another ten years before you get a handle on your magic, and despite the fact that I think you'd go crazy spending another decade at St. Bosco's, I highly doubt that either the Council or the MRF will just sit around twiddling their thumbs for that long to see how you turn out. There's got to be something that you can do that can help you figure out your magic and get you stable before anything goes to hell."

"That's what Mexico is supposed to do," I say morosely. "The woman there, the healer, she might be able to teach me how to control my magic without a wand. Ms. Cross thinks I might have to give up using a wand entirely."

"I mean, that's probably your best shot, but it'll mean going all alone to a remote part of a country you've never been to where you can hardly speak the language, and you'll have to say goodbye to everyone you've ever known. Plus it doesn't really solve the problem of the Council and the MRF, does it?"

"If it stops me from being a ticking time bomb of magical energy, I think it does."

"Okay, yes, it solves the problem of the Council being afraid that you'll implode the school or something. But the way I see it, if you learn to harness your magic and wield it properly without a wand, then you've just been turned into a ridiculously powerful magician. You're Superman, and we're all the puny weak non-bullet proof humans. And that's what the Council is really afraid of. Of you being able to challenge them. And it sounds like that's why the MRF wants you so bad. Either way it's a boon to them. If you remain the way you are now, you're like a berserker in a Viking army. You can't really control your magic, but whatever you end up doing, it's big. All they'd need to do is point you in the right direction and tell you to just let loose, and something devastating would be bound to happen sooner or later."