On the following Monday, Clara found herself at Professor Morris’s office once again. This time, instead of the usual arrangement, the center of the office had been completely cleared, with the long table pushed against the wall. On it sat a row of seemingly unrelated objects: several small gemstones, some wooden rods, a bowl of apples, and a fork.
“Miss Casewell, please come in.”
Clara entered and closed the door. “Are we about to have the world’s strangest picnic?”
“I suppose that depends on you.” He grinned, then gestured to the chair next to the table. “Before we attempt spellcasting, I need to run some preliminary examinations to verify your magical affinity—or, in your case, the conspicuous absence of one.”
She sat down as instructed, and Morris picked up a pale blue stone from the stand, holding it between his thumb and forefinger.
“This is an aquamarine. Low-grade, but sufficient for today. I’m going to channel a small amount of energy through it and bring it near various points on your body. Tell me if you feel any sort of reaction.”
That was too vague. “What am I looking for?”
“Warmth, tingling, pressure, nausea… anything, really.” He raised his staff with his other hand. “Fluat vis per lapidem.”
Let power flow through the stone, she recognized.
The aquamarine began to glow faintly, and Clara held her breath. Morris brought it toward her right hand first, holding it just above her palm.
But there was nothing.
He moved it to her left hand, then her forearms, her temples, even the base of her skull. Clara closed her eyes and sat perfectly still, hoping to find something if she just focused enough, but her body remained stubbornly unreactive.
“Hmm.” Morris set the aquamarine down and scribbled in his notebook. “No ambient response whatsoever.”
“Is that bad?” she asked hesitantly.
“It’s exciting.” He picked up a second stone, this one a dull yellow. “Now let’s try with a citrine.”
It produced the same result, or lack thereof. And so did the green peridot after it, and the smoky quartz after that. After every failure, Morris grew more animated, scribbling furiously, while Clara grew more hesitant.
“Your body has no innate magical resonance, unlike every other living being I’ve examined,” he said after the fifth stone. “It’s as if you’re completely neutral.”
“Neutral,” she said carefully. “That feels like a polite way of saying ‘magically empty’.”
Morris pushed his glasses up. “I prefer ‘magically novel’.” He reached for one of the wooden rods and fixed a tiny ruby into the socket on its upper end. “This is a basic channeling wand, the kind used for teaching children.”
He handed it to her. The wood was smooth and surprisingly light.
“What do I do with it?”
“The principle is simple: a spellcaster speaks an incantation in the Sacred Tongue while visualizing the intended effect, and their magical energy flows through a gemstone or crystal, which acts as a conduit to shape the spell.”
Clara nodded; this was more or less what she’d gathered via observation. “And if I have no magical energy?”
“As I mentioned last week, gemstones can be pre-charged with magical energy. This is mostly used for enchanted objects, or as an amplifier for those who have very limited energy themselves.” He pointed at the tip of her staff. “I spent the better part of last evening charging this ruby.”
“So you want me to use the energy you stored on the ruby as a replacement for my own?”
“That is the idea.” He held up a cautionary finger. “There is, however, a significant caveat. The process of transferring magical energy into a gemstone for someone else to use is grotesquely inefficient.”
“Inefficient how?” she asked.
Morris picked up his pen and drew a crude diagram on a spare sheet of paper. There was a large circle on the left labeled ‘Input’, connected by an arrow to a smaller circle on the right labeled ‘Stored’. “When a spellcaster channels their own energy through a gemstone in real time, the loss is minimal—perhaps ten or fifteen percent. When we charge an enchanted object with continuous magic, that goes up to as much as twenty-five percent.”
Then he drew a third circle, this one much smaller than the others. “But pre-charging a stone for use by someone else? Depending on the quality of a gem, the caster’s compatibility, and dozens of other variables, you might retain at best a tenth of what goes in.”
Clara stared at the diagram. “So if you pour a hundred units of energy into that ruby, I’d get to use just ten?”
“On a good day, with a well-cut stone and favorable conditions. On a bad day, you’d be lucky to get two or three. I estimate the stone on that staff holds enough energy for three, perhaps four simple spells.”
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“An entire evening’s work for just three spells?”
“Such is the world of experimental magic, Miss Casewell. It’s why enchanted objects and amplification crystals are so extraordinarily expensive; if charging were efficient, every merchant in the Kingdom would have a pocket full of spell-stones. As it stands, only the wealthiest institutions—like the Church itself—can afford to maintain enchanted infrastructure at any real scale.”
Clara made a mental note to ponder the economic implications of this later. For now, there was a much more pressing matter.
“So. When do I get to try?”
Morris pushed the fruit bowl towards the center of the table, then placed the knife beside it. He picked up one of the apples and pressed the knife’s edge against its skin. The blade barely left a mark. “As you can see, this knife is too dull to cut. Your task is to cast a vibration spell on the blade, causing it to oscillate, which will allow it to slice through the apple as if it were sharp.”
“A vibration spell,” Clara repeated. It was the magical equivalent of an electric carving knife. “What’s the incantation?”
“Tremant acies.” Morris enunciated each syllable carefully.
Let the… axis tremble? No, not ‘axis’. Edge.
The professor continued. “As you speak, you must hold a clear picture in your mind of exactly what you want to happen. Not a vague notion of ‘the knife should cut better’; you need to see the blade oscillating.”
“What if I visualize it wrong? Or if there’s a problem with me using the energy on the crystal?”
“Most likely, nothing will happen.” Morris glanced at the window. “Otherwise, the Goddess will flip a coin, as they say.” He smiled ruefully.
Clara stood in front of the table. She held the wand in her right hand and aimed it at the knife.
If Beethoven could compose and play symphonies while deaf, why shouldn’t I cast spells without magical energy?
“Don’t rush,” said Morris, “build the image first.”
She closed her eyes and pictured the knife. She imagined it moving, humming so fast it appeared still.
“Tremant acies,” she chanted.
The ruby grew warm, and Clara felt herself being pulled towards it. It was strange—she couldn’t pinpoint specifically what was happening, but somehow she knew there was energy moving around her.
There was a rattle on the table.
Clara’s eyes snapped open. The knife was vibrating. It was uneven, wobbly, more like a phone getting a call than an ultrasonic cutter. Nonetheless, vibrating it was. She started grinning like a child.
Clara Casewell had cast her first spell.
“That—” Professor Morris grabbed his notebook. “I can’t believe that worked.”
She fell onto the chair. The professor began scribbling at a manic pace, and the knife kept wobbling across the table until it fell to the floor.
“Oh.” Morris looked down, then chanted, “Desine.” The rattling stopped.
“That went far better than I expected.” He continued scribbling manically for a while, then turned to her. “Try to improve your visualization; really focus on making the edge oscillate enough to cut through the apple.”
Clara’s heart was thundering inside her chest, and she could still feel the pull of the ruby against her fingertips. “Can I try again?”
“By all means! You should still have two more attempts.”
She stood and raised the wand again. She pictured the thinnest part of the knife moving back and forth like a metronome, piercing cleanly through the apple.
“Tremant acies.”
At first, there was nothing, and the ruby was apparently ignoring her commands. Suddenly it flickered rapidly, then dimmed. Professor Morris ducked behind a bookshelf. “Watch out—”
The ruby glowed with a pop, and a crack appeared on the apple. A second later, the apple burst, spattering all over the desk and Clara’s apron. The professor laughed. “I suppose you included the apple in your visualization?”
She dropped her shoulders. “…Yeah.”
“Don’t feel too bad about it, Miss Casewell. That’s a fairly commonplace beginner mistake.” He picked up another apple from the bowl and put it on the desk.
“One more attempt in the ruby?” asked Clara.
Morris nodded.
She picked up the knife and inspected it carefully before setting it back on the table. Then she raised the wand and closed her eyes.
First, Clara cleared her mind and focused on the empty void, pushing all the distractions away. Then she pictured the knife—just the edge, no handle. It moved from one side to another, at first slowly, then faster and faster until there were only slight afterimages on each side.
“Tremant acies.”
She felt the warmth and the pull, and she could tell the ruby’s stored energy was diminishing. The pull faltered when her thoughts flickered. Don’t think about the energy. Think about the blade. Then it steadied again.
A soft hiss came from the table, barely audible.
She opened her eyes. The knife wasn’t moving around like before, but she could feel the ruby’s energy moving to it.
“Hold it,” Morris whispered. “Hold the image.”
Her mind pictured the blade again, while her hand grabbed the handle. She felt a very slight vibration—virtually imperceptible if she hadn’t been looking for it—and moved it slowly towards the apple.
The metal went through the fruit as if it were butter.
Clara almost jumped for joy.
She drew the knife back and went for another cut. But this time, the blade stopped at the skin.
She sighed. “I stopped focusing?”
“You stopped focusing.” Morris chuckled and took the apple. “Still, that was a clean cut. You’ve vastly exceeded my expectations, which I suppose has been the norm with you.” He turned to Clara. “I believe I owe you something of an apology.”
“For what?”
“When you first asked me to teach you magic, I agreed primarily because I found the theoretical question compelling. I genuinely didn’t expect it to work. I was wrong, and I look forward to being wrong about a great many more things in the weeks and months ahead.”
“Then it’s a good thing proving others wrong is something of a specialty.” Clara smiled. “I suppose this stone is all spent.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You were able to feel that?”
“Yes. It was almost like sand through an hourglass.”
He went back to scribbling in his notebook. Clara was just about to get a cloth and start cleaning the mess when the usual impatient knocks came, and the door opened.
Iris looked at the table, then at Clara, then at the wand, then finally settled on Clara again.
“You did that.”
“That I did, my lady. Would you like a slice of apple?”
“Congratulations!” The girl jumped towards her with a hug. “I knew you could do it! I told you not to trust Professor Morris when he said you had no affinity for magic. Sometimes, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
He cleared his throat.
“Oh, you’re here,” said Iris, as if finding the professor inside his own office were a surprise. She let go of Clara and turned to him. “You were supposed to wait for me. I specifically told you I wanted to be here when Clara cast her first spell, and instead you just—” She gestured at the apple carnage. “What kind of instructor has such a lacking sense of occasion?”
“Lady Iris, I don’t believe you explicitly asked me to wait—”
“It was implied!” She jabbed a finger at him.
“My lady,” Clara started, “it was my fault for not—”
“Nonsense, Clara. You were focused on your spellwork,” said Iris, crossing her arms. “Professor, I expect to see it all next week. And get some better apples; these are ghastly.”
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