Chatoyant College Book 8: From the Earth

Chapter 13: The Practical Use of Magic

Dawn left the library late that evening—technically afternoon, perhaps, but now that it was November and Daylight Saving Time had ended, the sun had set before she completed her shift—having checked out the Miranda Swick book. She hurried along the paths, partly because it was really quite cold, and partly because she was excited to show the book to Corrie and Roe. It looked like it had some interesting information, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of all of it.

When she reached Gilkey, though, the others were all getting ready for dinner. She wasn't very hungry, but Corrie was, and her friends wouldn't hear of discussing a book before eating. The book could wait. Dawn reluctantly agreed, but carried it with her—just in case. She admitted to herself that she might be a little paranoid about someone stealing it.

She was impatient all through dinner, and when everyone had finished eating, while normally they would have all sat at the table talking some more, the others allowed her to rush them back to the dorm. Finally, they congregated in Corrie and Edie's room, like usual—the two of them, Dawn, Roe, Annie, and Rico. (She would have invited Naomi, but she had vanished, and wasn't taking magic classes anyway.)

"Okay," said Corrie. "What's so exciting about this book anyway?"

"It's about the basics of magic," Dawn said. She paused for dramatic effect, fighting the urge to smirk. "But it says to start in a completely different way than Professor Lal and Professor Rook teach."

Her drama had mixed success. Edie's jaw dropped, and Corrie and Roe's eyebrows rose, but Annie just frowned and Rico just said, "Huh."

"I'm sure there are lots of different ways to learn magic," said Annie. "Working with the elements is just a convenient way to start."

"Ah, but I'm not just talking about working with the elements. This book—" Dawn stabbed the page with her finger for emphasis "—says not to start with the magic in yourself. In fact, it says it's dangerous."

"Really?" said Corrie. "Let me see that." Dawn willingly obliged, leaning over to hand the book to her friend. Corrie opened it and paged to the table of contents, her eyebrows wrinkled together. She turned a few more pages, then read aloud, "Be certain to follow the steps in order as outlined in this book. Do not try to skip ahead or change the order. You may find yourself attempting to use too much magic too fast, losing control, or otherwise failing to have any success with your magic. You must learn to work with magic that is not connected to your own essence before you can draw on your personal power without danger to yourself." She put her hand flat on the page and looked up, her mouth pressed in a thin line. "That's pretty straightforward."

"Can I see it?" Annie took the book from Corrie and turned to the front pages. "It was published in 1921. That's pretty old. Maybe the information is out of date."

"Yeah, but how old is Professor Lal?" Corrie asked. "Older than that. And—I don't know about Professor Rook..."

"He's a faerie," Dawn supplied. "Or he's something. I would be surprised if he wasn't pretty old, too." She'd seen the other magic professor in the halls of the magic building; Rico said he just looked like a tall, thin man when glamoured, but underneath he resembled nothing more than a very large crow. It was almost comical, especially when he was talking with Professor Lal, waddling along beside her sleek, pointy grace with his huge beak opening and closing. She had no doubt, however, that that beak and those claws could be formidable weapons if necessary.

"And... well, I don't think Professor Lal would expose us to danger, at least not on purpose," said Corrie. "But I'm not a hundred percent sure how much we can trust her."

"She answers all our questions," said Edie.

"Not always," said Corrie. "And she seems pretty set in her ways. When she says something's okay, she doesn't listen to any arguments against it, she just insists it's okay. Remember what she said about the faeries in the woods trying to kidnap Annie?"

"I do," said Dawn, as that day swam into focus in her mind. "She didn't think kidnapping qualified as harm. And she wasn't upset about it, either."

Annie nodded slowly. "Professor Rook didn't seem surprised or upset when I told him about it, either..."

"So she might think her way of teaching magic is best, just because it's her way," said Corrie. "And she might not believe it's bad for us to learn this way."

"So what should we do?" asked Roe. "Show her the book?"

Corrie shook her head. "I think we can learn from it without her. Without the magic professors."