“Good luck,” Ric says when we turn opposite ways. I smile, but I know it’s weak.
Inside the training room, there are only twelve girls. Including me. This is it. This is really the last chance. Mrs. Bentham comes in a few minutes after me, three women in long white robes following her. The female section of the council. She claps her hands together.
“Ladies! Today is a special day: magical testing. A day to prove you have all the skills needed to be an Enforcer. We test those skills to save the Nons around us, to teach each other, to honor the things we are given.”
An excited chatter fills the space around me. My heart pounds. Magic. I try to focus on Connie, and in no time at all I feel her presence. The magic is soft and gentle, familiar. I don’t sense the storm that usually brews with Carter’s magic. I shouldn’t have trusted him to come.
“All of these tests will be used to measure your individual skills as a witch, and help us find the perfect partner for you,” she says.
I close my eyes and pray that this isn’t the day that everyone finds out I’m a joke. That I can’t do magic. That I’m not meant to be here, or to be a witch at all. I swallow past the large lump that has formed in my throat. We stand in a line while Mrs. Bentham pairs us off into two groups of six. The council doesn’t tell us anything else, but one of them, a woman, leads us out the door one group at a time.
I’m in the second group. Each step we take is another movement toward the end of life as I know it. I’ve never been afraid, but suddenly I am. Of everything. This is another obstacle set to bring me down. To reveal the truth. My magic isn’t cranky, it’s completely dead. Gone. I shouldn’t be here.
The woman in white waves a hand in the air and every girl in my group is quiet. I don’t know any of these girls except Trina. They all stand tall, shoulders back, but I shrink to the floor. I wish I could be invisible. Then, I might survive this.
“My name is Ellore,” she says. Her dark hair is pulled back. Her skin is the color of deep caramel. She’s beautiful, perfect, and probably deadly. “Today we will start with water.”
As she says the word “water” a large pool of water appears in the center room. I don’t think it’s real, even though the sound of waves and a musky scent of salt and seaweed fill the room. I’ve never seen an ocean trapped in a pool. This can’t be good. There’s no way this is good.
“As a witch, you are tuned in to your surroundings. We pull from nature and all she has to offer us. We give back to her. Your first test is to face the water and not fall. You will start on this side,” she says. A girl gasps as Ellore takes a step in the ocean—and stays on the water. She doesn’t sink, doesn’t need to swim, and doesn’t even get wet.
“And you will go to this side.” Everyone’s still as she moves, as if our breathing could make her fall. She makes it across. “You will all be able to watch—though no one can hear anything that’s happening beyond this line on the ground.” Ellore points to a thick black marker at the front of the group. “Whenever you’re ready, girls, one of you may start.”
On the other side of the water, Ellore stands taking notes. One girl—a short one who’s a little rounder—steps up. Ellore waves her on. The girl thinks about it, walks around the water, sticks a finger up to test the wind. Everyone watches her.
I focus on Connie’s magic and let it fill me up as much as possible. I’m going to need it.
The girl sticks her leg out over the water. There’s a collective intake of breath from all the girls as we watch her step up. She takes two solid steps before she wobbles, one ankle rolling as her arms flail. She regains her footing, steady again. She takes about four more steps before the waves pick up around her. Even from where we stand, I can see them moving under her feet. The girl teeters some more, then takes two more steps before crashing in. She made it over halfway, but it’s not enough. She comes up from water, soaked and spitting out salt. Ellore reaches out a hand, and then the girl is safely on shore. Wet, probably humiliated, but unharmed. Aside from the whole being disqualified thing.
I bite my lip and watch as the other girls go. The taste of blood lingers on my tongue; my heart is racing. This does not bode well for me.
I’m the last one for this part. Six other girls have gone. Five have made it over. I close my eyes and try to remember what Connie’s magic feels like when it stirs up inside me. When it builds and pulls from the elements. There’s a spark of something: I pray it’s enough to get me across.
I stand in front of the water, Ellore and the other girls on the opposite side.
This is it.
I lower my foot down, eyes still closed, and prepare for the splash. It doesn’t come. Thank you, Connie! One step and then another, but then something shifts. I lose my balance and flap my arms around so I don’t fall. At the other end, I see the girls and Ellore watching me. I try to focus on Connie’s magic. They’re going to wonder why I stopped. If I’m going to fail, at least I’ll fail while trying to succeed.
I close my eyes and stick out my foot.
Then I feel it.
The soft hum of Connie’s magic is replaced by a raging fire inside my stomach. I take a step, eyes still closed. The warmth is strong, stirring inside, growing and building. It’s Carter’s magic—there’s no doubt. I can tell from the way it fights to get out all at once.
The water sways under me. I toss my arms out to balance myself, but keep my eyes closed. I tremble, rock with the movement of the waves, and will myself forward. I take another step and another. The waves increase, I breathe, take a step. Again and again, like a refrain.
My feet hit something solid. People clap around me and I open my eyes.
I’m on the other side. I made it across. Holy crap, I made it across. I didn’t fall in the water. I look around the room and Ellore makes notes in her notebook.
Carter showed up after all.
The second test is a wind test, Ellore tells us. We’re not allowed to watch this one, so the five of us who survived the first test sit in an empty room and wait. No one says anything to me, even Trina. She smiles my way and stays at my side. A couple of the other girls toss glances my way, but I’m okay with it. This is bigger than them.
Ellore opens the door and says my name. The other girls look at me. I lift my chin up and walk out.
An expanse of green surrounds me, the size of a football field. Ellore leads me to the center and stands beside me. Her voice is like a soft breeze.
“The wind brings us many gifts and it can carry anything to anywhere. These challenges will show us what you can carry when you are in control of the wind.”
She’s gone, off somewhere I can’t see. Leaves cover the floor around me. Wind. I hold a hand over one of the leaves trying, to get them to rise.
Nothing happens.
I try again. Nothing.
Please, please, please work. I need this to work. I picture in my head the wind carrying the leaves up into the air. The breeze on my face is like a soft touch, a beautiful downpour of reds, greens, and yellows.
I reach my hand out again, and a leaf flies into the air. Then, two. Then six more. In a single second, every leaf is floating up toward the ceiling. Thousands of them. I let go and they start to fall like raindrops. I catch them again before they land, toss them back up.
They don’t come back down.
Instead, now I have Ping-Pong balls. About twenty land on the ground at my feet in a circle around me. In the distance, there are red cups in a line around the entire perimeter of the field. They’re different heights—some floating, suspended in the air, and some on the floor. It doesn’t take much to figure out what I need to do.