To my right the rails were vibrating: another train was coming. I walked back up onto the platform. This time, when the train pulled up, I got on.
Back home, I took a hot shower, then once I was warm again I sat down at my desk and studied my new find. It seemed to be a glass marble, a little bigger than my thumbnail, pale green and translucent. Under the desk lamp I could see little white flecks floating inside. Now that I had the chance to study it, it was definitely a focus. It didn’t have any energy stored—what I’d sensed was the residue of its previous uses. The magic felt universal rather than living or elemental, but it was pretty generic. It didn’t seem closely tied to any of the magic types.
I ran it through a few basic tests but came up blank. It didn’t respond to any standard command words, which given that it didn’t have any energy storage was exactly what you’d expect. It was tougher than glass, but not indestructible. My best guess was that it was designed to respond to some sort of magical input, but channelling into it didn’t do anything. Maybe it needed a type of magic I didn’t have.
I thought about calling it in but decided against it. I’d show the thing to Caldera when she got back on Monday. With that settled, I left the focus on my desk and went to bed.
Chapter 3
“. . . and unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to open up any time soon.”
“That’s a pity,” I said. “No chance of that changing?”
“Right at the moment my schedule’s fairly fixed, I’m afraid. I’m committed all the way through the spring.”
“Sorry to hear that. If anything does change and you have an opening . . . ?”
“Of course. I’ll give you a call.”
“Thanks for your time.”
“Have a good day.”
The man on the other side of the video feed reached forward to his keyboard and the window closed. I leant back in my chair with a sigh. “Well, that was a waste of time.”
“I didn’t like him anyway,” Luna said.
It was the next day and we were up in my living room. I was at my desk, Luna was sitting on the sofa, and we’d just finished a call with another prospective teacher. I’d had Luna around just on the off chance that the conversation might have gone well, but as it turned out she could have saved herself the trip.
“Is it me,” Luna said, “or are there not many chance mages with the Council? Because every time I get a class on chance magic, it always seems to be some other mage telling us about chance magic. I’m starting to think I know more than the teachers.”
“You know magic types have a bias towards factions,” I said. “Death mages are more likely to be Dark, mind mages are more likely to be Light . . . well, chance mages tend to be independent or Dark. They might go through the apprentice program, but they don’t stay there.”
“Yeah, can’t imagine why. So have we run out yet?”
“Of the Council-approved ones, yeah.”
We’d been at the teacher-hunting game for a month, with no luck so far. Trying to find a magic teacher who matches your magic type and has the time and inclination to teach and is trustworthy is not easy. When I’d tried it with Anne and Variam, it had taken longer than this and I’d only managed a fifty percent success rate. “Guess it’s time to go farther afield,” I said. “We could try looking abroad, start in America or Europe and work our way out. Only problem with that is that I don’t really have any contacts over there.”
“Or . . . ?”
“Or we broaden our search by person instead of by country. So far I’ve been keeping it to Light mages and the reputable independents.” I tapped my fingers on the desk. “I know there are a whole lot more chance mages out there, but they don’t advertise. And you don’t know what you’re getting . . .”
“Soooo . . .” Luna said. “Funny you should mention that.”
I looked at Luna. “What have you done this time?”
“What do you mean, ‘this time’?”
“Just give me the bad news.”
“For your information, I got an offer for a teacher already,” Luna said.
“Who?”
“Her name’s Chalice.”
“She’s a finder?”
“No, she said she’s a chance mage. And she said she wanted to meet you.”
I frowned. “That’s . . . strange.” Magical teachers who are thinking about taking on a new student usually want to interview the student. The only explanation I could think was that she wanted some sort of payment. Still, there was only one way to find out. “All right. How?”
“She gave me an e-mail address, asked me to give it to you. I’ll forward it.”
“Okay. When was this?”
“Just this morning.” Luna paused. “By the way, there’s one other thing . . .”
I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. “What other thing?”
“She’s . . . not an independent.”
And if she were a Light mage, Luna would have told me already. “She’s Dark.”
“Yeah,” Luna said. She was watching me carefully.
“How do you know?”
“She told me. She didn’t keep it a secret or anything.”
“How did she get your contact details?”
“She said it was through the apprentice program,” Luna said, shrugging. “It was only my public mailbox.”
I was silent. “Is that a problem?” Luna asked.
“Yes.”
“You did just say we’d have to widen the search.”
“I said we might have to widen the search, and when I said ‘widen,’ I didn’t mean take anyone we could get. Let’s try some independents before we get crazy.”
“I thought you had been trying most of the independents.”
“Then we’ll find some others.”
“Okay,” Luna said. “But while we’re doing that, it won’t do any harm if we see how it goes, right?”
I looked at Luna. “Are you actually serious about this?”
Luna paused, then nodded.
“Luna, this isn’t a good idea. She’s a Dark mage.”
“Most of the people I hang out with are ex-Dark anyway.”
“Okay,” I said. “Bit of a difference here I don’t think you’re seeing. I was originally trained by a Dark mage, a really long time ago, and in case you’ve forgotten, it didn’t work out so well. And Anne and Vari’s experience was worse.”
“It’s not like the Council are so much better.”
“Maybe not, but they’re safer.”
“They didn’t feel much safer to me,” Luna said quietly.
That brought me up short. Luna officially became my apprentice two and a half years ago, but she got her feet wet in magical society the year before. And when I say “feet wet,” it was more like “someone trying to drown you.” Back then Luna had been a novice, inexperienced and vulnerable, and on two separate occasions she’d fallen into the hands of Light mages who had done a very good job of demonstrating to her that being a Light mage did not make you a nice person. Those sorts of experiences leave an impression.
But just because Light mages can be bastards, that doesn’t make Dark ones any less dangerous. “I don’t think you’re thinking this all the way through,” I said. “You’re twenty-four. In another year or two you’re going to want to take your journeyman tests, and that means going to the Council. You already know how much grief you get for being my apprentice, and I’m only ex-Dark. If you’ve been studying under a Dark mage directly, it’s going to be worse.”
“So the Council are going to be upset,” Luna said. “The Council are always upset. They’re never happy and they’re never going to like me, and you know what? I’m pretty much okay with that. I know doing this might be dangerous but . . . ever since I’ve been in the magical world, ever since I walked into your shop, I’ve been taking risks. And I kind of like it. I don’t want to be a hundred percent safe. Besides . . . the last few years, it feels like it works. Okay, yeah, sometimes it goes wrong, but everything good that’s happened to me, it’s because I took the chance and did something that could have turned out badly, isn’t it? I mean, that was the only reason I met you. If I hadn’t decided to go for it, I’d be back at home alone, sleeping most of the day and trying to find a reason to get up every morning. And that’s if I was lucky. So I don’t know what’ll happen, but . . . maybe it’s worth it.”