Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Chapter Ten - In Matters Of Trust

It wasn’t until about my third visit to Nightingale that I realized the thick smog that blanketed the whole of the establishment wasn’t the sort of smoke that I had first believed it to be. Sure, there were a few people lighting up cigars at the back of the pub, but what little smoke that they were conjuring slunk out the window next to them and the foul smell didn’t waft much further away from them. The smoke that was filling the room to the brim was a lighter grey and its smell was not quite so foul. It was something different entirely.

I would have noticed it if it wasn’t for me noticing the large white sign above the back of the bar that read in large black letters.

‘NO PORTING’

“What’s that?” I asked.

Sylvie hadn’t said much since I had arrived, besides ordering an apple martini from the bar. She looked bored, watching over a group of men in the corner of the pub who looked like they were about to break into a fight, she was swirling her finger around the top of her glass, making it sound a small ringing. It felt weird being here now. In my previous visits Sylvie had looked interested in me, happy to help, today she merely looked irritated and disinterested. We had sat in silence until I had mentioned the sign. I wondered if she had been thinking about her daughter. Hopefully nothing bad had happened.

Sylvie lifted her head back and I gestured towards the sign.

“A sign that fails at his sole purpose.” She muttered and turned away again.

“No, I meant, what is ‘porting’.”

Sylvie looked around the room for a moment and then pointed at man not so far away from us, dressed in a sharp looking suit. He was glancing down at his watch, seeming to wait for something.

“Give him a second.”

Just as she said it, the man faced his palms to the floor and quick smog, just like what the room was already full of, erupted from his hands. It only took a mere second for him to be covered in the mist. When I blinked, I realized he wasn’t standing there anymore.

“Porting means teleporting?” I asked incredulously, I gave off a small nervous laugh and Sylvie gave an uncaring shrug. When I gave it some thought, I realized it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. That had been me and Vi’s first thoughts when Mr. Skye had mentioned my family being Casters in our history cast.

Think you could magic us out of here, Caster? Had been Vi’s choice of words.

Ren had stared at us like he was waiting for me to actually do it. Now I understood why. I was probably very capable of doing it, I just had zero understanding of it. I had to feel a little bad, but considering that Ren knew more about my family of Casters than I did, there were probably a lot of moments where I thought that Ren was glaring at me just to be rude when he was actually waiting for me to go out of control with powers.

Still, teleporting was crazy.

I took special notice in the pub for some areas where the mist was appearing a little thicker. More often than not it was someone teleporting into the pub, despite the sign that clearly asked people to do otherwise. With the mist only getting worse as the night progressed it was no surprise that the pub owner tried to discourage it.

“The mist has a memory magic attached to it. Any human who breathes it in forms a logical memory for how the person appeared into any given setting.” Sylvie told me. “It generally doesn’t affect magic users, but in such high dosages… well, there’s a reason people choose this pub over non-magic pubs. The mist mixed with alcohol can be a good concoction for forgetting.”