The screen shows a world map highlighting borders and the crests of old and new kingdoms.
“Eventually, what began as creation became conquest. As nations began recruiting Magicks into their armies and governments, everything shifted. Magick became less about wonder and more about warfare.”
Because power always invites appetite.It was something my father used to say. Over dinner. Over the sound of the news on the radio. I know from my own research that this was when competing nations began to build their own schools, their own doctrines, their own agendas.
“The Whittaker School of Magick was founded in 1745 by Headmistress Magdalena Jamison,” Straits says. The screen shifts, painting Whittaker’s crest in clean lines—a mountain silhouette over a still lake, a single star pinned in the upper left like a secret the sky refuses to keep. “It is also the youngest magick school still in operation.”
The image flickers. A school rises behind a wrought-iron gate shaped like two condors.
“The oldest was established in Peru—long before the rise of the Inca Empire.”
I glance up at the photo. The stone walls, the open sky?—
For a split second, a cool draft seems to brush the back of my neck.
The screen shifts again. A gold dragon sigil coils across black. I can almost believe it’s trying to move across the screen, its scales catching the light as it twists. “Then came the highly secretive Xinj Academy in Beijing.”
Another crest replaces it—this one severe and angular. “Vikhrostrum Akademiya, in Eastern Europe.”
A shiver touches my spine when I look at the mountain peaks that represent the famous war college. Krovya’s prized jewel of the Carpathians.
“And finally, the ancient royal academy in Jordan.”
My fingers twitch at my sides, like my magick is grasping for something just out of reach. I shift slightly in my seat, brushing off the sensation.
Straits turns back to us, hands clasped behind her back. “For most of recorded history, only four elements were recognized. Does anyone know which four?”
Rozsen’s hand goes up. Straits nods once.
“Air, fire, water, and earth,” she answers.
“Correct.” Straits clicks her pen once more, and the screen changes to artwork depicting a bloody battle. “And in 1792, the First Magick Rebellion occurred. A conflict the non-Magick world prefers to romanticize as the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.”
A murmur runs through the room—hushed and dissatisfied. Somewhere behind me, I hear Peter whisper, “My grandfather calls itthe Slaughtering?—”
Straits’s head turns. Just slightly.
The whisper dies in Peter’s throat like it’s been strangled.
“By World War II,” she says, “the Nazis were experimentingon Magicks. Testing the boundaries of what elemental bodies could endure. It was during that era that the other elements were identified—wood, metal, shadow, and light—long hidden, and perpetually misunderstood.”
The screen flickers: black-and-white photographs. Medical charts. Bodies reduced to data.
My stomach tightens.
“Professor, is it true that we have a metal Magick student here at Whittaker?” It’s Sawyer who asks the question.
Straits nods. “Yes, and two wood-wielders, and one light Magick.” Murmurs go through the auditorium.
But no shadow-wielders, I note. My finger twists the ring on my hand in reflex.
“A hundred years of uneasy peace followed, until the Second Rebellion—a brutal conflict where Magick and non-Magick factions warred openly across borders and ideologies.”
My father had a special interest in this particular piece of history. I remember combing through some of the many books I found in his office—texts describing the absolute horrors and atrocities committed in the name ofthegood of the worldduring that time.
In my peripheral vision, my water bottle trembles—the liquid inside rolling once, barely a ripple, but enough to make my pulse jump. I reach out and curl my fingers around the bottle, willing it to still.
“In the last forty years,” Straits continues, “more and more nations have turned their backs on democracy, choosing control instead. And with control came more Magicks—recruited, trained, owned. Bound by loyalty… or fear.”
