Four thirty-three

Chapter 20

Brett shuffled his feet slightly. His gaze wandered away from Eddy, the way it always did when he was shy about something, and Eddy knew he'd hit a nerve.

"Okay. Fine. Let's try this. See, Yang, the key to producing magic with music is intent. If you watch soloist play, or even full orchestras of musicians, you'll see that their powers are present, visible, but restrained, within control. That's because their main goal when playing is creating music, and not using magic.

But think about what you did out there, when the police were going after us. You were not thinking of music when you created that fire wall. You were in danger, and you used magic to defend yourself. The sounds you were making were irrelevant, but it was the fact that there was sound that made a difference. Same as what you did to escape the prison. The music you were singing did not matter, as long as there was music.

Repertoire is a way musicians have found to shape magic, to control it better, and to perform more and more complex spells. That's why composers like Jordon are of great importance in the military. But the primal form of magic can be found within any piece, even within any note, because it is not the music that matters then, it's intent.

And that's why fire is not coming to you. You want to summon it through the kind of repertoire you're playing and the way you're playing it, but that's not the way it works. As long as you don't believe yourself capable of creating fire out of thin air, you won't be able to do it. But think about the way you felt when you created that wall of fire out there. You were not thinking about the music. You were scared, and you wanted fire, and fire came. Whatever you play is irrelevant, as long as you're playing, at least at the beginning. Once you've learned how to summon the fire, then you can start shaping it through repertoire and technique, but not before."

Brett blinked at him owlishly. "Yeah, Jeremías didn't say any of that."

Eddy nodded. "The thing is, most musicians here start doing magic when they are very young. The issue with them is exactly the opposite: trying to explain to them how to separate the music from the magic. When children play, magic springs around them, uncontrolled, and the real challenge is for them to focus on separating both things, because for them they come naturally together, inextricable from one another. Jeremías is a good teacher, but it's not often that we find cases such as yours, and he might have overlooked this explanation because he thought it an obvious thing."

Brett huffed. "Of course." Once again, a painful reminder that he was too old, too late, too behind everyone else.

"Yang." Eddy frowned. "I know exactly what you're thinking. Stop it. The fact that you've been forced by circumstances to take a different path into learning stuff doesn't mean your learning is impossible, or slower, or bad. It just means teachers have to be good enough to adapt to your needs and understand that there isn't just one way to learn things. You will get there, eventually, on your own terms, and it will be just as good as if you'd taken the 'usual' path from the beginning. I promise you."

Phoebe was right, Brett thought at that moment. He was starting to be far too trusting of Chen.

He could almost believe every word he'd just said was true.

"Fine. Okay. How does the intent thing go, again?"

♪ ♪ ♪

That night he barely managed to drag his exhausted ass up the stairs, all the way back to his dorm, and fall face first to the bed before falling asleep. He and Eddy had somehow ended up working up until very late, forsaking dinner altogether, until a very angered Michelle had all but thrown him out of the clinic, accusing Eddy of taking poor care of himself and abusing his students .