Chatoyant College Book 8: From the Earth

Chapter 9: Sweet and Salty

Dawn rested her elbows on her desk and pressed her hands together, palms flat and facing up. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Corrie had her hands cupped. But Dawn didn't have that much confidence in her own magic ability; the best she expected to do was dampen her palms.

Of course, she would have to focus first. Ten minutes had passed, and she kept getting distracted. She heard someone behind her say that he thought he'd done it, and Professor Lal explain, after a short pause, that it was only the sweat his palms naturally produced. Dawn started to smile at that, then realized her palms, too, were sweaty. She blew on them, then wiped them on her jeans to dry them off and brought them up to face level again.

Finally, she reached for her magic, and found it the same as on Wednesday. That was odd. Still, she took a deep breath and held the magic, focusing on creating water out of her hands.

It took her most of the rest of the class, but she finally managed it, filling each of the hollows of her palms with a small puddle of water. She was very proud. Professor Lal inspected the puddles, pronounced them pure water, and told her she'd done a good job. Dawn grinned and then drank the water out of her own palms. It tasted sweet, but a little salty, which was probably the addition of sweat.

When Professor Lal dismissed the class, Dawn stood up and looked at her two friends. "Did you manage it?"

"Yeah," said Roe with a happy smile. "It was a lot easier than fire, actually. Professor Lal says that some people are just better at one than the other. I'm so relieved—I thought I was bad at magic when we were doing the fire!"

Dawn grinned. "That's cool. This was harder than the fire for me, but I did it. What about you, Corrie?"

Corrie wrinkled her nose, stood up, and shook the water off her palms. "No." The drops shone in the fluorescent lights, splattering out to the sides, but seemed to vanish when they reached the floor.

"Uh..." Dawn said, gesturing at the water, trying to articulate the fact that Corrie clearly had managed it.

"Oh!" Corrie looked up. "Sorry. I got the water. That was easy. Then Professor Lal had me try to make it vanish. I couldn't do that. I was just frustrated."

"There is no need to be frustrated," said the professor from behind them, making Dawn jump slightly. She deliberately turned slowly. Professor Lal's true appearance was so frightening that looking at her suddenly still startled Dawn, even though she'd seen her three times a week for months. "You did a very good job," the professor continued, nodding at Corrie. "Vanishing water you have created is, in fact, quite difficult."

Corrie crossed her arms, though she was smiling. "You didn't tell me it would be that hard."

"You needed something to do for the rest of class. I thought it was possible you would manage it, in which case I would be very impressed." Professor Lal gestured to the three of them. "Would you all like to come to my office now? I'm sure everyone is headed there, to sign up for one-on-one time, but we'll go inside. If the times you want are taken I will give you extra time, to make up for the inconvenience."

"Sure," said Dawn. They followed the professor out of the class. Sure enough, the hallway to the magic professors' offices was crowded with other students, two of whom were writing on the chart Professor Lal had provided on the front of her door. The four of them squeezed into the office, and Professor Lal warned the others outside before shutting and locking the door.

Dawn looked around with interest. This was the first time she'd been inside their magic professor's office. It was dimly lit, and a bit dusty, but otherwise didn't look any different from a normal office. Nothing, as far as she could tell, was glamoured, though some of the books on the shelf by the window did have odd text on their spines that would probably benefit by being hidden from prying eyes.

The desk had a computer, an older one with an ugly beige chassis, and was strewn with papers, open notebooks, and a few books. There were piles of books on the floor as well, and one shelf in a bookcase was, oddly, filled with candles in many shapes and sizes. And leaning against the desk—posters?

Yes, she realized as Professor Lal bent and picked them up. And there was Edie's little bag. And the origami dragon. The professor held them out, her face very serious. "I think I've figured out why the magic is so much stronger now. And you aren't going to like it."