Days eased by with surprising alacrity. September breathed its last and summer was forgotten in the misty marshes and grey heaths of England's moors. October's autumn hung upon the land in a dreary cloak of tenuous rain storms—not that I was able to experience much of the weather.
For the most part, I spent my days in the dungeons of the manor's depths, sitting on the cold floor as I read books by torchlight with my incarcerated mage instructor. The page margins were always full of Cage's surprisingly tidy and well-penned annotations. I would puzzle through his old notes while the mage lectured or just talked about past events or items that caught his attention. Cage spoke often and yet never really seemed to say much.
He never asked about me, about the world outside his homey little cell or the murder I had confessed to. Nor did the mage ever say another word about his own crimes. We spoke only of magic and the strange, mystical things that populated this world and the next.
Today I sat with a blackboard balanced on my knee and a nub of chalk pinched between my fingers. The chalk hadn't begun as a nub, but two hours of attempting to draw constructs had worn the stick down to almost nothing. My black jeans were pattered with white fingerprints and my teal blouse was equally dusty.
I stared at my newest attempt, trying to discern any defects in the smooth lines of the nesting circles. Finding none, I spun the board and held it up to the bars, clearing my throat to get Cage's attention. The mage had left me to my work, drifting off to his own experiments and activities. He returned from his burnt table, brushing soot from his fingertips.
"Hmm...." The mage took the blackboard and held it up to his face, studying my work. I waited with held breath, exhaling only when Cage lowered the board and shook his head.
"By the King below," I exclaimed, vigorously rubbing at my tired eyes. I was covered in chalk dust from head to toe and could feel the small granules grate beneath my fingertips against my skin. "What's wrong with it now?"
"The space between your rebound line and the distal arc is exaggerated too heavily." He pointed to the line of the outer circle, then to the line of the middle one. "The curve is too extreme and will never be able to set." He held his branded hand through the bars, fingers wiggling and palm upright. "Allow me."
Grumbling, I slapped the chalk into the mage's out held hand. Smirking, Cage used the nub to quickly sketch a new construct alongside mine. He completed it in a matter of seconds and spun the board to display a perfectly formed set of nested circles. Next to his work, my painstakingly crafted construct was wobbly and off-kilter.
"You're trying too hard," Cage said as he handed the blackboard back to me along with another stick of chalk. The nub was flicked somewhere into the darkness beyond the torchlight. My frustration must have been evident, as the mage spoke slowly in a calm, even tone. "Magic is a practice, like medicine—but, in many respects, it is also an art form. Allow the natural pull of your muscles to guide your hand. Magic is all about your intent. Stop trying to make perfect circles and simply create an unending line."
That was undoubtedly the most unhelpful thing he had said all afternoon. I puffed out my cheeks as I tugged at my hair and spun the skinny stick of chalk between my fingers. Magic was a practice, magic was an art, magic was hard, magic was easy. I had heard many opposing definitions from the mage during our time together. As far as I was concerned, magic was a mystery that defied solving.
I had memorized terms and had copied runes until I understood their basic meanings—though, when they were thrown into constructions and combined into scripts, those meanings became as convoluted as the most difficult of foreign languages. It was time to try my hand at setting a construct—but it was proving to be a daunting task.
I stared at Cage's work, tracing my thumb along its extremity. "Why can't I simply use your construct?"
"You can't," he said as he looped his arms through the bars and leaned upon the supporting struts. "You could try. Nothing would happen. The construct must be set by the user. The same can be said of runes, or a witch's potions. You see, when you set a spell or a construct or a rune, you pull a strand of your essence through your creation—not unlike a thread creating the final stitch to close a wound. So even before you begin to pour energy into the construct to activate it, the construct is already attuned to your particular soul's signature."
"What about tracing? Couldn't I just trace yours or the book's construct?"
"Certainly." Cage shrugged, his dark brows drawing nearer one another. "Many wizards and ley users who fail at creating their own constructs do so. To be plain, however, I consider doing so a half-measure. A cheat. A way for an untalented student to pass a course but never learn the applicable skill. What would happen if you needed a construct while you didn't have your tracings? What if you were in danger and couldn't stop to sit down and trace new ones?"
Despondent, I leaned my elbows upon my knees and wilted with my face resting in my palms. "No. No, I guess you're right." I didn't have to be happy about him being correct, though. Tired and sore from sitting on the floor, it was only natural I'd want to find a shortcut.
I tried what the mage had said, allowing my hand to move swiftly in a single, arcing line until the three circles were done. I had to admit it was better than my previous attempt, but it still didn't have the perfectly smooth arc of Cage's work. I sighed. He wasn't even a wizard, which meant he wasn't able to use constructs—and yet he could draw them seamlessly.
I worked for a while, scrubbing my failed attempts clean with the heel of my palm before trying again. Cage watched me with his arms still looped through the bars, his body blocking the light emanating from inside his cell. Something started to burn, the faint whiffs of smoke reaching my nose, but from the corner of my eye I saw the mage's fingers twitch, and the smell receded.
"Sara," he said, drawing my concentration away from the smeared blackboard. An unusual severity framed his face and his eyes, usually bright with humor, were somber in the stingy torchlight bathing part of his countenance. "You're unusually dedicated."
I stopped working. "I don't understand what you mean." My hands fidgeted and tapped the tip of the chalk against the board.
"I've not had an apprentice of my own, but I have been around a number of my colleagues'. In my experience, I have come to know it's one thing to be eager to learn, another to be desperate to know." Cage's frown intensified, though the myriad of his thoughts remained unknowable. He was similar to Darius in that regard. I never knew what Cage was really thinking, and that was often unnerving. "What drives you, student?"
I lifted my hand to halt the incessant rap of the chalk. Was there truly a difference between an eagerness to learn and a desperation to know? If such a difference existed, what was it? What did Cage see in me that he hadn't seen in the apprentices of his fellow mages?
The mage waited with quiet expectance as I fiddled with the chalk, then with the beginner's text laying at my feet. Cage had always refrained from asking personal questions during our lessons, so his sudden curiosity had caught me unaware.
"I...." My voice wavered as I shut the book. I took a breath and forced nonchalance into my words, as if they meant nothing to me. "I'm going to die soon. There's something I want to do, something I want to ensure—someone I...I want to protect before it's my time. I can no longer default my ignorance to my upbringing within human society. I must rise above that, must strive to come to a level of understanding that will allow me to persevere and survive long enough to achieve my goal."
