Magic swelled inside of me, and though it felt familiar, it was different from my own. I realized I was accidentally siphoning my grandfather’s magic, like I had with the dragon shifter.
Cassiel placed a hand on my shoulder, as if that would calm me down. Come to think of it, it was helping. I could feel him tugging on his magic, drawing it away from me.
“You already have the tools, Charlie,” Cassiel said. “Patience. Imagination. Creativity. You already know how to bend reality to your will— you’ve done it many times before. Bend this anger to your will as well. You’ve got to be strategic, and you can’t do that by copying my strategies. You must make your own. You said yourself you experience the world differently than me, so what strategy is going to work foryou?”
I rolled my shoulders, even though all I wanted to do was smash this mirror instead of portal through it. But my grandfather was right. Whatever I was doing wasn’t working, so I had to change it.
Instead of reacting immediately, I turned inward. My grandfather was preaching patience and strategy, so how could I use those to my advantage? I’d been strategic all my life, conning people to get to where I needed to go. I just had to do the same here.
But I couldn’t con a mirror. I had to conmyself.
I stood in front of the row of mirrors and focused on the feeling of sunlight reflecting off their surfaces and onto my face. We were shaded by the overhang above us, but there was enough sunlight coming through the gardens that I could still feel it. Or, at the very least, I imagined it. It didn’t matter if the sunlight was real or not, because whether I imagined it or not, it was real to me. I sensed all the mirrors at once, and I suddenly understood something I didn’t before.
Of all the tools I had at my disposal, the ones inside of me were the strongest, and the easiest to manipulate. I thought creating this portal would prove something to my grandfather, but maybe that was the wrong way of thinking about things. If I had something to prove to him, then I was trying to prove something to myself, too, which meant I didn’t actually think I could do this.
Anger led to solutions, or so my grandfather thought. Well, there was only one solution I could think of right now.
I leaned down to grab the rock I’d kicked earlier, and I tossed it in my hand.
The solution wasn’t to prove what I was capable of. It was to know that I wasalreadycapable, no evidence needed. Kallie had been trying to drill that into my head since she first taught me about illusions. Portals were a manipulation of reality, justlike illusions were. So I came to the conclusion that there was no reason to create the mirror portal in the first place, because the portal already existed.
I drew my hand back and threw the rock straight toward the glass. If it were any other mirror, it should have shattered, but the sound of breaking glass never came. Instead, I heard the rock clatter to the ground yards away from me, all the way on the other end of the Royal Wall of Mirrors.
I didn’t have to celebrate it, because I wasn’t surprised. I’d already made the decision that it would work, and I knew reality would warp to my command. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel damn good about it, though.
Just to enjoy my work, I stepped forward and walked straight into the mirror. It was solid only moments ago, but now, the glass melded around me like a viscous liquid. For a beat, I felt myself floating somewhere else entirely, then I stepped out onto solid ground.
Clapping came from far away on my left. My grandfather had been standing to my right a moment ago, and now, he was all the way on the other side of the Royal Wall of Mirrors.
“Excellent job, Charlie,” Cassiel praised.
I turned back to the mirror and touched it, but the portal had already closed. The glass was solid again.
Cassiel approached me. “I wasn’t sure you would master it so quickly, but you’ve done well.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I should’ve felt a surge of pride, but I just feltnormal, like I knew all along how simple it was and I just had to remind myself of it.
“I wonder how far I can take this,” I mused. “You said Elves could only portal through reflective surfaces, but what if there aren’t any around? I’ve got to be able to get my people out of abad situation in a pinch if it comes to that. I’m not your typical Elf, so what if I can make my own mirror?”
I concentrated, and the handle of a small mirror appeared in my hand, like what Eddie had used to portal us to Ilamanthe. I ran my fingers over the smooth surface of the mirror. Around the edge were intricate designs that reminded me of the Elvish carvings in my room. I could feel the mirror reflecting the heat of the sun. The mirror was completely solid, and I’d done a good job.
I turned the mirror down the hall to project a portal like Eddie had. I decided it was already done, but nothing happened. My magic seemed to be warring inside of me.
“It’s a good theory, Charlie, but I’m afraid the mirror you created is not reflective— it’s merely made of glass,” Cassiel revealed calmly. “It will not work to make a portal.”
I ran my fingers over the mirror again. The glass was smooth, and itfeltlike a mirror in my hands. “I don’t get it. My illusion magic isn’t like anyone else’s. It’s tied to my demigod powers. When I create something, it becomes reality and never goes away. This should be as real as the mirrors on the wall.”
“As I said before, you mustunderstandthe tool you are using, in order to utilize it properly,” Cassiel said.
I understood what he was saying immediately. “I see. I’m unable to replicate a mirror’s reflection, because I experience it differently. It’s like with the gun— I made the frame, the bullets, and the sound, but I didn’t have all the other pieces in place. I understand how mirrors work, but I don’texperiencethem the same way other people do. It’s reflecting the sun’s heat, but not an image, because my illusion magic is limited by my own understanding.”
It was the same way I couldn’t create nutritious food out of nothing, because I never trusted that the food would last.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Cassiel encouraged. “If this doesn’t work for you, we will simply explore other tools that will. You don’t need to be able to use your illusion magic in a pinch if you are clever enough, because you will always find another way out— whether you have access to a reflective surface or not. In these lessons, I will teach you how to pivot in situations in which you might need to explore alternatives. You’re a clever man, Charlie, and I trust that you will learn how to use that to your advantage in any given situation, just as well as you use your magic.”
His encouragement meant everything. No one ever thought I had what it took, because they didn’t want to take the time to teach me. They saw a blind guy and wrote me off as a lost cause. But my grandpa wasn’t like everyone else who had thrown me out like garbage before. He was going to do whatever it took to turn me into the next criminal mastermind in the family. I would become the next great Emperor who would lead the Elves long after he was gone.
