Spells and Sorcery

Chapter Eight

"Jeanie's working on Gram," Nicole said, as if that were a real answer. "And in the meantime...just do little things."

I was about to remark that summoning was about as basic as it got, per the primer, but neither she nor Jeanie knew about it. Instead, I asked, "Who taught you how to make potions?"

She flushed a little, then turned to retrieve the carrots from the fridge. "No one did. I don't make them, really. The calming draught was just a fluke." She placed the bag of carrots on the counter and half-smiled. "Want to help me peel?"

"Can I try to use magic?"

She sighed. "Be very careful."

I closed my eyes and released my magic. The carrots sat in the plastic bag, their skins connected to the flesh of the vegetable. I could almost see the molecular connections, and severed them at the same time.

"Shit, Lexie!" Nicole screamed, dropping the bag that had burst into purple flames.

"Sorry! Sorry!" I cried. "Let me try to—"

"Don't do anything else!" Nicole screamed, throwing the bag into the pot and tossing the lid on top of it. After a moment, she lifted the pot and the flames had disappeared.

For a few moments, we stared at each other as the air increasingly smelled of burnt plastic.

"I'm sorry..." I said quietly.

"Just...go to your room," Nicole said. "And don't use any magic until Jeanie or Marie get home."

Unsurprisingly, Jeanie came to give me a long lecture about the dangers of using magic unsupervised.

"Well, I was supervised," I said. "Nicole was—"

"Nicole is a potion-maker," Jeanie said, although she lowered her voice to a whisper. "If you decide to blow up the house—"

"I thought you said she has magic." Memories of the Separation and James Riley came bubbling to the surface, as did Gavon's mention of prejudices.

"She does," Jeanie said, sitting down on my desk chair. "But it's different from yours. So you can't practice magic unless Marie or I am here."

I stared at her. "You can't be serious. You're barely home as it is, and Marie would think it was funny if I ended up killing myself."

"I'm barely home because I'm trying to convince Gram to let you come up to the compound," Jeanie said. "And it's taking a lot more convincing than I thought it would."

"Yeah, so." I folded my arms over my chest. "What's that all about, hm?"

"Gram's got her reasons, and she's the boss, so we have to do what she says."

There was one thing I was definitely sure of: the more I heard about Gram, the less eager I was to see the woman again. Especially since it was obvious she wasn't eager to see me.

I went to school the next day in a funk, annoyed by my still machete-like magic and the lack of understanding from Jeanie and Nicole. My locker took three tries to open, thanks to Callista and Joel fighting right in front of it. Ms. Benoit assigned a mind-numbing set of exercises in French and chemistry literally made zero sense to me. Then I got to English and realized I hadn't prepared anything for class, and Ms. Grace kept calling on me, as if she enjoyed seeing my deer-in-the-headlights look. I had to eat lunch inside thanks to a downpour that ended just as my lunch period did.

Then, in graphic design, I spent half an hour working on a texture on a font, only to have the program crash and realize I hadn't saved jack. That was when I noticed my nail beds glowing purple, and when I went to grab the mouse to salvage my project, I shorted out the computer.