Flicker (26 page)

* * *

T
hough it was well past midnight
, Filo was still downstairs in the shop
. He was sitting on the fl
oor behind the counter, a
candle burning near his feet. His eyes ached and his muscles were too tight. He felt like he’d been awake for days.

As much as he would’ve liked to go upstairs and tell Lee to get the hell out of his bed s
o he could sleep properly
, he couldn’t bring himself to.

Snippets of their argument echoed through his mind. Filo hated Lee’s petulant tone. She sounded like the little girl that she was. He hated the roughness of his own voice when he yelled at her, the furious edge. He sounded crazy, even in his own head.

I’m not scared of them.

And he wasn’t. At least, he tried not to be, though sometimes he couldn’t help but flinch when one of them made a sudden movement.
Neman
and
Morgan
were neither kind nor gentle, but they had raised him. Everything Filo was, he owed to them, though most days,
he barely felt like a person at all.

There are worse things you could do than teach me magic.

Of course there were.
But i
t wasn’t a matter of
choice.
It was a matter of
Neman
and
Morgan
, of ord
ers he couldn’t disobey. Nem
and
Morgan
owned
him.
Years ago, they
forbade
him
from revealing shop secrets to outsiders. Lee was an outsider if there ever was one, and the less she knew, the better off she would be.

Though, to be fair, the things Lee wanted to learn weren’t exactly secrets. Lee had workable magic—at least, he was fairly certain she did. W
ith training, he suspected she c
ould be at least equal with Jason. She wanted to learn the basics, standard knowledge to every apprentice everywhere, and
Nem
and
Morgan
had never specifically forbidden him from revealing
that
…

Filo rubbed his eye
s.
He needed to sleep, but he doubted he’d get much rest down here, and he didn’t feel like dragging himself upstairs.

Some trai
torous part of him wanted
to
try to
teach her. Just try. He’d never directly diso
beyed
Neman
and
Morgan
before. What would it feel like?

Silently admonishing himself, Fil
o pinched
his own arm
.
H
e was
grateful
that
Neman
and
Morgan
knew only his future, and not his mind. If th
ey k
new,
they
would beat him until he sobbed
and begged for forgiveness, just as they’d done the morning after Alice left. She had gone,
but
he ha
d let her go. It was his fault, really, and he was so afraid for her, so he asked—begged—to be punished in her stead. And he was
: held down by
Neman
while Morgan
kicked him in the ribs and raked him with her claws.
He
would have promised anything to make them stop. He
never wanted to hurt like that again.

Filo shut his eyes and bit his lip until he tasted blood, trying to banish his thoughts.

The candle g
uttered and died
. He could
relight it
with a touch of his finger, but he was too tired to draw on his magic. He was too tired to do
anything but sit in the dark and
try not to think until he fell asleep.
 

* * *

When morning brightened the apartment, Lee scrounged aro
und for a fresh se
t of clothes, then carried her findings
into the bathroom. After she’d showered and changed,
she returned to the front room and
pulled the flowers Nasser had given her out of their hiding place in an empty shoebox beneath the bed. Sitting down, she silently admired the flowers. She’d expected them to start to dry, but they were still fresh; the petals hadn’t even begun to curl.

With the flowers in her hands, it was easy for Lee to remember how she had felt with Nasser: calm, peaceful, almost normal. She liked the sound of his voice, the softness of his gray eyes. She felt a smile spread across her face at the thought of him.

Rising, Lee put the flowers away and entered the workroom.

Filo
was standing with his back to her, shelving books. When
he
glanced at her, she noticed the dark circles
around his eyes. His clothes
were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them.

“You look like hell,” she commented.
“Where were you all night?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. Just curious.”

Filo lifted another book, but didn’t shelve it. Instead, he
went
to the long table. He grabbed a sheet of paper, folded it into an airplane and
set it down.

“This is an animation spell,” he said. “It’s the simplest spell I know. If you can’t figure
this
one out, then we’ll know it’s time to call it quits.”

It took a moment for the words to register with her.

“You’re going to teach me?” she sputtered.

He nodded grimly.

“Why?”

“What? Want me to change my mind?”

“No. It’s just that—never mind.” She walked around to the other side of the table to get a better look at what Filo was going to do. “Show me.”

Filo pressed his hands against the table on either side of the plane. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. As he exhaled, the plane rose from the table and swooped around the room. She dodged the plane it
as
zoomed toward her.

“That’s incredible!” she gasped. “How did you do that?”

“What does the book say?”

“Concentration and visualization,” she quoted.

“Exactly,” Filo said. “You imagine all the details of what you want to do, down to the littles
t thing. Then you
focus your energy into the object. If you concentrate hard enough, and y
ou put enough will into it,
the spell should work.”

Filo reached up and caught the paper airplane as it flew past him. It struggled feebly in his grip, and he shook it lightly. The airplane stilled, as if he’d shaken the enchantment from it. Filo set it down and motioned to Lee. “You try.”

Lee stepped into Filo’s place and looked down at the plane. It was such a simple object, just a folded sheet of paper. Filo had animated it in two seconds, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. She could do this.

She placed her hands on either side of the plane, just as Filo had done. Then she closed her eyes and pictured the airplane rising
from
the table and gliding around the room. She wasn’t sure how to focus energy into willing
an event
, but she didn’t want to ask Filo, so she did something she’d done
hundreds
of times, befo
re she took math tests
or presented projects to the class. Lee
held her breath
, hoping with all of her might. She exhaled slowly and opened her eyes.

The plane was still lying on the table, completely motionless.

“I don’t think you did it right,” Filo said.

She scowled. “I can see that. What did I do wrong?”

He shrugged. “It could’ve been anything. Your image might not have been clear enough, or your will might not have been strong enough. Your concentration could’ve been off. Maybe you’re just not in tune with your magic.”

He slung his bag over his shoulder and started toward the door.
“I’ve got deliveries to run
.
Don’t touch anything while I’m gone.”

“Are you gonna lock me in the apartment again?”
Lee crossed her a
rms over her chest.

Filo heaved a long-suffering sigh.
“Look, y
ou can’t come, okay? It’s not always safe
, and I don’t need you
underfoot
while I work. I might take you
along
some other time. Maybe.”

Maybe means no.
It figured. “Fine
.”

“I’ll be back by sundown.
Maybe a bit later.
Don
’t touch anything,” he warned, as he stepped into the hall.
“
I mean it.
”

Lee had been
studying
the book of magic for
most
the morning, ever since Filo left. One
passage in particular stuck out:

A “normal” human with a certain level of innate potential may acquire workable magic through extended study and practice, especially when under the tutelage of an experienced magical practitioner. Continual contact with such practitioners over an extended period of time, usually spanning several years, will sometimes spark an awakening of sorts within a normal human. If one touches the magic of another, one’s own magic may gradually (or, in rare cases, quite suddenly) awaken.

Maybe that was the problem: She just hadn’t had enough practice. She couldn’t really be expected to get it right on her first try. Everyone said that magic was supposed to be hard, but she could get it in time. All she had to d
o was work
.

But that could take years, if it happened at all, and she didn’t have that much time. She needed to figure this out as quickly as possible. She needed to
find her niche
, and learning magic was the first step.

Lee glowered down at the airplane. If she wanted to work magic, she couldn’t allow this sheet of paper to defeat her.
She
sat down on the bed
.
Where had she gone wrong?

The book made magic sound simple enough, like a step-by-step process, but when it came down to it, Lee really didn’t understand. She had to break it down further, i
nto pieces that she could grasp
and fit together
.

“A spell must be imagined with perfect c
larity,” she
muttered
. “I have to see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, and taste it.”

Five senses. Five aspects of visualization.

She had to do more than picture the plan moving:
She had to
experience
the
spell even before it was cast.
Perfect clarity.
That was
visualization. That
was where she’d made her first mistake.
Now she had to puzzle out the other half: focus.

What was focus, really? It was concentration, force of will. When Lee tried to animate the plan
e
, she hadn’t truly been
willing
it to happen. She’d been hoping, and she saw now that hope and will were two very different things.
Lee had to command
her magic to make the spell work
. She had to master her will.

She returned to the table. It was time to test her new theory.

Lee placed her hands on either side of the plane. She burned the image of the plane into her mind, then closed her eyes.

She
envisioned
the plane rising slowly off
the table
. She added detail to the scene, focusing on the way the plane tilted forward and backward as it floated. She heard the soft rustling of
paper wings, felt her hair stir
as the plane glided past. She held the image in her mind until it felt truly real.

When she was certain that she wouldn’t lose the picture, she began to concentrate on
moving
the plane.
Making
it move. She felt as if she were trying to extinguish a candle or turn a page using only her mind. She tried to
feel
her magic, her energy, tried to see it
s
effect.

A color rose from the depths of her mind: pale green, the color hiding beneath the bark of a young tree. Lee envision
ed her magic as that
shade of green, and she knew immediately that it was right.
Her magic was smooth and sure, a flowing stream of power. It knew what to do.