The Apprentice's Apprentice

Epilogue

Cora breathed deeply, her eyes closed as she calmed herself. Only when she felt centred and as comfortable as she could be did she open them. Selena's sun room looked the same as it always did, a bit darker today due to the overcast skies, but otherwise the usual bright room she was used to.

Warren sat across the room from Selena, leaning back in his chair. He was doing much better but Jason had said it would take as long as six weeks for his ribs to heal and it had only been half that. Warren wasn't taking the enforced rest well but had finally learned, after several painful incidents, that moving quickly or twisting wrong weren't doing his injury any favours.

Catching her gaze, he smiled encouragingly at her. She returned the expression momentarily before she looked towards Selena. She sat in her usual chair, a steaming cup of tea beside her, her blue gaze locked onto Cora. She nodded.

Cora took the signal for what it was and began her spell. Letting her magic flow up and out, she coated the whole room with it, keeping her usual shields on either side of the power to keep it from escaping. As she worked it was hard not to think of everything that had happened between learning about magic and now.

It really hadn't been all that long that Warren was telling her she had magic and begun teaching her. Then everything with Philippe had exploded and even now, he still cast a shadow over her life. Take what she was doing for instance. By unspoken assent, all three of them had decided that mind magic would be the last of the basics she learned. Cora understood and now shared Warren's prejudice against mind mages. She felt bad about it, but after everything that had happened, didn't really think she could just welcome a mind mage as easily as she could one of another type. She sometimes felt like that made her a bad person but couldn't do anything to change it. Not yet at least.

Cora focused back on her spell. This was no time to be distracted. Her magic was in place and now came the hard part, for her at least. Cora had to picture exactly what she wanted her magic to look like. She went with a familiar but still wildly different scene, one chosen specifically for Warren.

Stone walls and a stone floor, wide windows at one end and wood tables throughout, torches along each wall along with floating candles, and the grand finale was, of course, the ceiling that reflected the overcast day outside. Only when Cora felt that the image was as perfect as she could remember it as did she release the spell.

In an instant, the sunroom was gone, replaced with the castle hall. Selena and Warren both looked around with interest for a moment. Then Warren turned to glare at her. "The Great Hall, really?" he said.

Cora grinned back at him. "I thought you'd like it. I know how much you love Harry Potter."

Selena finished her inspection and looked back at Cora. "A nice job. I don't see any flaws in your spellcasting and while you didn't cast with speed, you did so with thoroughness. Something Warren would do well to emulate."

Warren glowered at them. "You both just like ganging up on me. I should have known better than to pick up another female mage and just left Cora alone."

They turned near identical raised eyebrow expressions on him. "See!" he said, pointing at them. "You two are freakishly the same and are getting even more as you spend more time around each other."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Cora replied.

"Stop being melodramatic," Selena said, shaking her head. "Honestly, you are one of the most high-strung apprentices I've ever had. And your injuries have made you quite sour of late."

Warren looked from one to the other, his mouth open, before he thought better of it and shut it. Cora repressed a chuckle. Warren only learned some things by getting abused by doing the wrong thing. Given enough time, she thought she and Selena would have him trained into a proper behaviour soon enough. Or at least mostly trained. There were some things she didn't think they'd ever be able to fix.