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After the last class let out, I went to find Hannah. I ran into her in the hallway outside of our room.
“Hey! Oh my God, how are you feeling? Are you okay? I went to look for you in the infirmary, but they said you’d already been released. Did the healer work some kind of magic on you?” She shot a worried glance down at my stomach, taking in the tunic that obviously wasn’t mine—it was a deep blue color, different from any of my other clothes.
“Um… turns out I kind of worked some magic on myself. And some other people helped with that. And I’m fine, but I’m restless. Want to practice spell casting?”
Hannah narrowed her eyes in disbelief. “Sure,” she said slowly. “Not in the library, I guess.”
“No. Somewhere a little more private.”
Her golden eyes lit up. “Cool! I can show you what I found.”
She took my hand and brought me around the corner to a door I had never seen before. It looked like it should have been locked, but she opened it easily to reveal a narrow set of spiraling stone steps.
“So our room is in that little alcove thingy,” she said as she started to take the stairs. “And I remembered looking at the school and thinking it was a castle what with the towers and everything, and I started to wonder where the towers were, and it only made sense that an outcropping on our floor would be the base for a tower and… tah-dah! As far as I know, nobody comes up here.”
It certainly looked that way. Small windows looked out in all directions from the circular room, which held only a few boxes and some dusty furniture. It was colder than our room, but I’d been running hot ever since the incident in Combat, so it was a welcome relief. I dumped my satchel on a box and sat down on the threadbare sofa.
“I don’t know if we’re supposed to be up here,” Hannah said, shooting me a guilty glance. “But I figure it’s the best place for privacy.”
I could see her almost bursting with questions, and I loved her for not asking them right away. I pulled the spell primer and a few supplies out of my satchel and she did the same. According to our teacher, not all fallen creatures could do magic. Most demons could, but other creatures like hellhounds, gargoyles, and werewolves couldn’t. Their magic was limited to what they were. They were infused with it, rather than being able to use it for spell casting.
We sat cross-legged on the floor across from one another with the witchy collection of things between us. Candles and feathers and all that jazz.
“Did the instructor say we’d be using feathers and stuff in the field?” I asked doubtfully.
“No, silly! These are practice. If we can make the feathers float then we can throw the bad guys around. At least I think that’s what she said.”
I shrugged and flipped to the appropriate page.
“All right so… no words or anything?”
“Nope, it’s all visualization. She said we can use words if it helps us visualize, though.”
“Something like ‘feather ascend’?” I glanced at the white bit of fluff like it was a snake coiling to strike.
“Well, sure, but you’re never going to make it happen if you’re tentative. You have to decide it’s a thing that has already happened, then it will.”
I blinked at her. She smiled at me reassuringly, then inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. As soon as she opened them again, the feather in front of her started to float.
“How did you do that?”
She shrugged. “I decided that it had already been done. You try.”
I followed her advice. I closed my eyes, took a breath, and decided that the feather had taken flight. When I opened my eyes, it was still sitting on the floor.
“Okay.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “What did I do wrong?”
“Did you clear your mind?”
I almost laughed. Clear my mind? Was that even possible? I shook my head and tried again.
The feather is flying. The feather is flying. The feather is… Jayce would have made a great winged monster. It’s a shame a hellbeast got him. Then Xero flashed into my head. What would he have been like in the closet? Those dark eyes with all their hidden colors spinning and glowing and—
“Piper!”
My eyes flew open and I slapped a hand over my mouth. The feather was in the air now, spinning crazily as a flame consumed its edges, making the little bits of white blacken and curl. Within seconds, the whole feather was nothing but ash floating dizzily in the air.
“Wow,” she said. “How did you do that?”
