Page 49 of Reluctant Wizard

The wizard tapped her nails in a staccato of boredom, making a face as she did. “So dull. Baby steps. It’s a disgrace that Convocation students aren’t taught such elementary techniques as a rule. Why do you suppose that is, Alise Elal?”

Alise wanted to answer that she had zero control over Convocation Academy curriculum or policy, but she caught the canny gleam in the woman’s gaze. A test then? “Because of the potential for abuse.”

“Indeed. The dark arts are regarded with such superstition that all in the Convocation swear by us even as they avoid us. If not for House Seraphiel’s historic place and considerable influence within the Convocation, I and my colleagues would have been eliminated from the academy entirely. As it is, high houses are allowed to excuse their students from coursework in the dark arts, as did your own dear papa.”

“He is hardly dear to me,” Alise pointed out, increasingly intrigued by the cantankerous woman.

“Well, that answers the question of whether you’re a fool. Tell me, why do you need to learn these psychic defenses Healer Jonathan recommends? House Hanneil up to their old tricks, I suppose.”

Alise didn’t know whether to confirm, deny, or plead ignorance. But something about the Seraphiel wizard’s frankness disarmed her. And the compulsion had been removed. She owed Gordon Hanneil nothing. So she told Morghana Seraphiel everything that had occurred with Gordon, grateful that she’d spent enough of her grief and terror in the telling already that she could keep relatively composed during the recitation. The dark arts professor listened with attentive interest, working her bare toes in the loamy soil beneath her chair thoughtfully.

“Take off your boots,” she ordered once Alise had finished her summary. “Don’t look at me like I’m barmy, girl. You’re here to learn; I’m here to teach. Logic implies that you would do as I say, yes?”

All right, though it struck her as a bizarre ask, Alise complied, sitting in a rickety corner chair to pull off her boots and socks, then standing again before the professor. Her feet sank into the soil, which held a surprising amount of warmth and moisture. It felt strange, but also oddly grounding and familiar, as if she’d recaptured a moment from childhood, except that her own childhood had never held such opportunities.

If anyone had asked her to imagine what a lesson in the dark arts would be like, she would not have said anything close to this. She had truly expected considerably more bubbling cauldrons and sulfur, a thought that made her smile.

“Earth and sky,” Professor Seraphiel said, as if answering a question. “Water. Flame.” She pointed in turn to the trickling waterfall and the fireplace. “The dark arts have more in common with ancient forms of witchcraft than modern wizardry likes to acknowledge.”

“I didn’t realize,” Alise murmured.

“Not with a hole in your education, you wouldn’t. But you are experienced with elementals, so you should understand. The numinous is grounded by the elements of our physical world. Psychic manipulation is a magic that relies upon controlling the mental energy of another. Just as you harness the incorporeal to your will, so does an unscrupulous wizard, such as the Hanneils have perfected over centuries, attempt to bind and tame you. You are, after all, simply a sophisticated spirit gifted with a corporeal form.”

Alise had never thought of herself as a spirit with a body, and the idea gave her a sense of dislocation, as if the world had jumped to the left and suddenly presented itself from a different angle. Her head swam woozily.

“Toes. Dirt,” the wizard woman instructed, pointing at Alise’s feet.

Obediently, she dug in her toes, finding that sense of rightness and realness returning.

“Gives you a different perspective, doesn’t it, on all your spirit binding and taming? As you do unto others, so can be done unto you. It’s worth remembering. Sometimes I think those of us in houses that trade in variations of psychic magic—Seraphiel, Uriel, Elal, Sammael, Ariel, and even Refoel—retain our ancient enmity for Hanneil not so much from hatred of the perverted control they’ve attempted over the centuries, but out of envy that they do what we scruple not to.”

Alise gaped at her. Morghana Seraphiel waved that away. “A philosophical discussion for another day. Tell me, given your extensive experience in harnessing spirits to your will—think of the most evolved and complex spirit you’ve bound—what weapons does it possess to resist you co-opting its free will?”

She didn’t like to think of herself as a Gordon-type, terrorizing others and tethering them to her will in the same way she’d been tormented. The dark arts professor watched her knowingly. “Now you begin to understand why everyone is chary of the dark arts. We embrace a different perspective that many find… unsettling. Answer my question if you wish to learn, young Elal.”

Alise bent her mind to the riddle. How did spirits attempt to resist her? “Any number of ways,” she answered slowly, as she thought it through. “Evasion, first. If they can’t be found, they can’t be caught.”

“Good. What else?”

“I’m not sure how to describe it, but a kind of… slipperiness? They wriggle through my mental grasp like water through my fingers.”

“Excellent. Remember that. And if they cannot evade or elude?”

“They fight. They use strength, matching their power against mine. Depending on what I have available, they sometimes succeed. I don’t always have enough magic to outlast them or quickly overpower them.”

Professor Seraphiel nodded. “You’re not a complete idiot, so that’s helpful. Which of these weapons do you think you could employ to resist a similar attempt to control your thoughts?”

Trick question. “All of them, depending.”

“It’s too late for evasion. House Hanneil knows who and where you are. Can you elude the next attempt?”

Alise considered that, aware she’d furrowed her brow, thinking of that second encounter with odious Gordon. “I might. I could be like water, like air, like sand through a sieve, though it would take practice.”

“And practice we will,” the professor replied with satisfaction. “That is your first and best line of defense. To outlast and outpower—well, that would take more resources than you possess at this time. So we will focus on teaching you to be elusive.”

“I thought I’d be learning shields,” Alise admitted, “but I understand now how this approach makes more sense.”

“Shields are a martial metaphor. They imply a static defense that can be circumnavigated or broken. You will learn to be like the spirits you tame, like the spirit you are, everywhere and nowhere. You cannot be broken because you cannot be fixed into place.”

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