The Apprentice's Apprentice

Part 20

Cora fell into the familiar pace, matching her steps to Warren's as they both emerged into the afternoon sunshine. Today was the first day they'd had a break in the summer humidity and Cora was enjoying not being a giant ball of sweat. Showering in the morning and then again when she got home was not something she liked having to do, especially since it completely desiccated her already dry skin.

The thought had her absently scratching at her arm before she caught herself and she focused on Warren instead of her skin. He was staring straight ahead, black eyes steady under his even darker eyebrows. From the fairly relaxed state of his face she guessed he was thinking about magic. It was the one thing he really seemed to love.

That got her thinking again. Cora waited until they were well away from other people, the only people moving through the occasional pools of shadows that sprayed across the sidewalk from under the trees, and said, "Hey, what exactly do you do with magic?"

Warren turned to look at her and frowned. "You've already seen some of what it can do. You can move things without touching them, create light, start fires, talk directly into people's minds, all sorts of things."

"No, that's not what I meant. Like, what can you do with magic later? What are you supposed to do with it? Are there jobs that use magic? Or is it just something you use for fun and stuff?"

"Oh. Well, some of it can be used in work, if you're careful about it. There are a few jobs you can get that require magic, though those are rarer and often require a lot of extra training so you can hide what you do effectively. It also depends on what your speciality is. I know people good with communication who have worked as private investigators and reporters, I know a girl who makes a killing as a bartender because of her mind speciality, and I know a guy with transference who has his own moving company."

"So you sort of just match what your magic does to a job that you could already take?" Cora asked. She wasn't sure she liked this, though it did mean she wasn't going to have to get some weird job that she couldn't tell anyone about.

"Pretty much, yeah. At least, that's what most people I know do. Again though, it depends on your speciality. The hardest ones to use in the real world are spellbreaking, offensive, and defensive. They're most useful with regards to other people's magic. I do know one mage company where they hire people with those specialities, just to stop what their opponents are doing."

This was just getting weirder and weirder. Cora wondered how far down this rabbit hole she was going to end up. Still, she had to know more, if only to assuage her ravenous curiosity. "What do mage companies do?"

Warren shrugged. "Depends on the company. One I know does special work for the government, covert stuff, and the other one I've heard of deals with corporate espionage and stuff like that. They're kind of like private security, fixers and investigators all rolled into one."

"So is that what you're going to do after you've finished school and everything? Join a mage company?"

"God, no. I was thinking of going into video game design. I like computers and art and I like bringing what I can picture in my head to life, even if it's only on the computer screen. And with my speciality in visualization, I can cheat a little and use 3D illusions to help myself get everything just right. What about you?"

Cora sighed. "I don't know yet. I can't really decide. I've thought about doing languages and being a translator or something, but I also really like English and reading, but then there's Business, which is way more practical. But I don't really know. I figure I've got time to decide. Heck, maybe this magic crap will help give me a better idea of what I want to do. I just don't want a job where I have to do the same thing every day. I hate that. It's why I quit volunteering with Meals on Wheels and started helping out at the kindergarten last year. I got my volunteer hours done without making me want to kill myself."

Warren chuckled. "Too bad you weren't learning magic before now. I'll just be using a mind spell to take care of my hours. And yeah, I get what you mean about the same stuff every day. That'd drive me nuts too."

She flashed him a smile as they reached the top of the hill. Warren returned it and for once, Cora felt like they were actually on their way to becoming friends.