Chapter Five

For a first lesson, my previous teachers often liked to dazzle me with their magic. Madam Ben Ammar had promised me I’d be able to summon fire like she could. Madam Albright had showed me the spell she used to find anything lost. Master Young had made his house tidy itself up all on its own.

When I finally calmed myself and made my way down to the Morwyns’ shop, Xavier handed me a broom.

I frowned at it. “How is this meant to help me bless my father?”

“I’m afraid we have the workday to overcome before we can begin your lessons. After we close up shop, I’ll teach you about controlling your magic. Once you can do that, you’ll be able to bless him.”

He made it sound so simple. A trifle. He turned to the washbasin, his sleeves rolled up as he scrubbed at phials and beakers. I bristled at his indifference.

“Why must we play shopkeeper when my father is suffering?”

His shoulders lifted and fell with a sigh. “Because it’s a Monday, and customers will be coming. There are other people who also need our help. I can’t just shut down my shop. I’m sorry.”

I scowled. He was right, though I’d never tell him so. “If you mean to help me control my magic, aren’t you going to teach me some sort of cleaning spell?”

“I don’t use them. It’s better for me to reserve my strength for our lessons this evening.”

“Reserve?”

He nodded. “Most of my power is spent making potions.”

None of my teachers had mentioned conserving their magic. It was a bottomless well, they’d said, fueled by emotion and words and the beat of one’s own heart. It was a gift from the sun itself, strengthening us and tying us directly to the earth and the plants that we used in our potions. It wasn’t like gold, meant to be stored up and spent wisely.

“You can’t run out of magic.”

His gaze lowered to the floor. “No. But these days, I have a particular knack for growing tired.”

I frowned. It certainly seemed so. The bags under his eyes. The pallor of his skin. By the minute, I was realizing how fortunate he was to have a helping hand around the house.

“Why, though?” I prompted.

He rolled his eyes. “Must it be a trial to ask you to sweep for me?”

With a huff, I breezed past him into the back potion-making area. I swept up dust and powders of many colors and carried them to the dustbin. Clearly, the man had better things to do than clean his own house.

“Earlier, you said bursting into tears was good for one’s magic,” I mentioned, rolling back the rug in the entryway to sweep there, too. “Do you cry to subdue your magic as well, or does that also exhaust your power?”

He turned from me, reshuffling the hoard of bottles cluttering up his workbench with great determination. “Yes, I cry, Miss Lucas—”

“And if you’re angry?” I asked. “Do you rant and rave and shout?”

“Yes. Any emotion fuels one’s power. If a magician does not honor a feeling, their magic can get too strong. The stronger the magic, the harder it is to control.”

I frowned. “My other teachers said that was why we had to keep our emotions in check. To keep from feeling too much or else our magic would be out of control.”

“Well, most people are of that mind. Like my father.” His expression was hidden behind the curtain of his black hair. “My mother is of a different school of thought. There are some who believe that embracing emotion, not withholding it, is what leads to controlling one’s magic.”

“What if that magic is already too difficult to control?” What if, I thought, keeping my worry locked up in my heart, what if my emotions are nothing but trouble?

He finally turned to me, the faintest ghost of a hopeful smile dawning on his face. “I believe anything can be tempered with enough time and dedication.”

The bell over the shop door rang. I stood at attention, still clutching the broom. I thought, This must be how actors and musicians feel waiting for the curtain to rise. My stomach fluttered. Magic tickled my throat.

A tall man with dark hair and a beard stepped across the stoop. He wore a smock covered in sawdust. “Good morning,” he said meekly.

I curtsied. “How can we help you, sir?”

“My wife is ill,” said the customer. “Her stomach troubles her—she can barely move.” He reached into his pocket and removed five copper coins. “Is there something I can get for five? I’ll pay more with interest, if need be. It’s urgent.”

Xavier eyed the money and nodded, approaching his shelves. He ran a finger along the array of bottles, but then his shoulders drooped.

“I’m afraid those particular potions have been in high demand,” he said. He rubbed his temple. “I apologize, I usually have more tinctures stocked—”

“It’s all right,” said the customer, his shoulders sagging. “There’s another wizard a few hours from here, isn’t there?”

“We’ll help you, sir,” I told the man. “You shouldn’t have to travel so far.”

I glanced back to Xavier, who was fidgeting with his silk cravat.

“Yes.” When Xavier looked up, there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. “If you’ll give us only a few minutes, sir, Miss Lucas will prepare the potion for you.”

My face grew cold. I darted over to his side. “I will?” I whispered furiously.

Xavier nodded. “I’ll show you how to make it. You’ll do just fine, I’m sure.”

Glancing at the customer, I remembered with great dread Xavier’s comments about magic and strength and excessive emotion. Would my downpour of grief an hour ago be enough to keep my magic at bay? “Master Morwyn,” I said under my breath, “does your lesson involve me sobbing in front of a stranger?”

Calm as ever, he turned to the customer. “If it wouldn’t trouble you, sir, would you mind waiting for us on the porch? We’ll call you inside once the potion has been made.”

The man shuffled out the door, his brow lined. The bell over the door jingled as he shut it.

I spun towards Xavier, my stomach doing a somersault. “I can’t do this!”

He scoffed as he set two bowls on the workbench. “You’ve surely made potions with your other teachers.”

“They let me chop ingredients and mix them together—they almost never let me cast spells! And I’ve only sold a potion I’d made a few times—”

One of the bowls wobbled and then flung itself off the tabletop. Xavier clicked his tongue disapprovingly—at the bowl. He stooped down and replaced it, his hands firm.

“It’s perfectly normal to be nervous,” he said to me. “I know it’s a new way of training. But the more you deny your feelings, the more restless your magic will be. You must become comfortable with your power if you intend to control it.”

Every failure could determine Papa’s future. The other bowl quivered, and Xavier stilled it with a hand. “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

I swallowed. In my mind, I could see Papa’s eyes blown wide with horror as the flowers bloomed from his heart. I could see a woman who looked far too much like me, with angry, red hair, and the ability, magical and not, to break and bend hearts. “Plenty of things.”

The bowl trembled again. Xavier shook his head. “Be as specific as you can.”

I stared at my hands, quivering against the deep brown of the stone countertop. The hands that had burned my father. “I don’t know. There’s just . . . so much.”

He uncorked a round bottle filled with light pink liquid and set it in front of me. “You’re being too hard on yourself,” he said softly.

“What am I supposed to be doing?” I squeaked, imagining Papa’s eyes. His scream. His dying heart. All because of a power I never asked for, inherited from a person I couldn’t even remember. “What if my magic hurts you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “But I want you to harness the energy of the fear you’re feeling. I want you to pour that power into the bowl. Use that restlessness within you, and with all your might, think of peace.”

I choked out a laugh—but even that frightened me, since the tiniest emotion or action seemed enough to release my magic. “How can I? What if my magic hurts that man’s wife?”

He placed the bottle in my gloved hand. I met his gaze again. I was so fraught with emotion that my whole body was quaking . . . but he didn’t seem to find me silly or pitiable. He was serious, but gentle-eyed. Like he was listening intently to my every word. The way he used to listen to me. “My magic gives me trouble, too. I don’t expect you to be an expert.” He nodded to me. His voice was smooth and calm. “Let the fear roll through you like a tide. Then let it pass.”

I shut my eyes and pictured that wave, the color of night and roaring at me like a lion. It twisted in my gut, then crashed into itself. The water I envisioned swirled in my middle like a whirlpool.

“Your feelings give your magic strength. Use their power; don’t force them down,” said Xavier. “To release that power, you need intention and something to channel that intention into. Your fear, your sadness—take that energy and hold it.” He lifted my hand, sending a chill up my back. I breathed deeply and focused on the maelstrom within me. “Ideally, the potion we’re making should help an uneasy stomach. Speak of peace, balance, and comfort to it, and you can make it so.”

“Peace,” I said. Nothing happened. “Peace.”

“Picture it in your mind. And breathe.”

My lungs filled again. My mind turned, as it always did, to my father. I remembered childhood summers spent on the porch, curled safely in Papa’s lap, listening to crickets and watching the stars. Winters by the fireplace, drinking chocolate and reading stories together. Spring nights, with sweet-smelling lavender hanging on my lintel, his lullabies wafting through the room, and his fingers brushing baby hairs from my brow. It had always been just the two of us—but that felt like so much more than enough.

“Peace,” I whispered. The storm in me cooled. I poured out some of the liquid and felt a rush of energy leave me as well, loosening my shoulders and my chest.

He pressed a square bottle, some other ingredient, into my hand. “Continue.”

“Peace, tranquility, balance.” I let the energy pour from me like the fluid from the bottles, one after another. My words slurred together, slowly morphing into my father’s lullaby. I sang the words until the verse was done and let my voice echo in the room and fade into silence.

Cradled in my hands was a bowl full of lilac-colored liquid. It shook like it was caught in an earthquake; like the potion was trying to burst from the bowl. Then the brew swelled and grew like a tidal wave of its own, rising up, overflowing and flooding over the counter in an impossible amount.

“Curse me four times over,” I grumbled.

“Mop!” cried Xavier, holding out a hand. On cue, one zipped out of the supply closet and into his hand. He passed it to me with a grimace. “And—do not swear, if you can help it. I don’t want your magic getting any ideas.”

He was right. Speaking Curse me! into the world was tempting fate. I bit down hard on my tongue and mopped up the thick lilac mixture.

As I cleaned the floor, Xavier paused beside the bowl that had overflowed. He frowned at it—What else had I done wrong?

“I wonder,” he murmured.

He filled a teaspoon with the potion . . . and then tasted it.

I gasped. “Xavier!”

“I want to see if it works.”

“What if it hurts you?”

He shrugged. “I feel perfectly fine.”

My heart rose. “You mean—you mean I made the potion all right? I just created too much of it?”

“Perhaps, I—” Xavier cut himself off, his brow furrowing. He approached the counter, plucking a raspberry from the small bowl we kept for use in potions. With a look of deep concentration, he popped the berry into his mouth.

“What are you doing now?”

He hummed thoughtfully. “I seem to have lost my sense of taste.”

“What?”

Xavier waved a hand. “I’m certain it’s only temporary. But it’s a curious effect, nonetheless. Something that merits more study—”

“Now?” I gestured around me at the sticky countertops and the violet puddle at my feet and towards the customer still waiting on us outside.

“Right. I’ll make a new potion as quick as I can.”

While I mopped up the remains of my failed potion, Xavier brewed a new, better one.

Mint extract. Chamomile and vervain tea. Oil of ginger and roses. He poured drops of each into little cups and inspected them to be certain that they were all the same amount. Equality of ingredients is necessary for balanced potions, Madam Carvalho had once taught me.

The lovely smell helped distract from the anxious nausea caused by my magic.

At least his potion would do as intended.

Within minutes, he finished the medicine, bottling it and taking it to the customer outside.

Leaving me alone.

I could feel my magic squirming around inside me like a snake. I held my hand to my forehead.

Fool, my magic whispered. You can’t even make a nausea potion without destroying the shop and hurting your teacher. How on earth can you hope to save your father?

“Stop it,” I growled.

You only bring destruction.

Leaning my head against the damp countertop, I covered my head in my arms. I tried to remember what Papa used to tell me. That I was strong. That I wasn’t my magic. That my magic was a blessing. That he and my mother had prayed I’d grow to be a witch.

You have magic like her, said the voice. And you’re weak like her. Cruel like her.

I wanted to cry or shout but was too afraid. Would I make lightning strike the house? Would Xavier start to grow thorns? Would I flood the kitchen with flowers?

Again, the door opened to the sound of a jingling bell. Xavier gasped, his gaze on the floor as I looked up.

Dozens and dozens of pink peonies had popped up between the floorboards. Peonies: a sign of shame, said Waverly’s.

I dropped to the floor and tore up the blooms.

“Stop! Stop!” Xavier cried as I crumpled flowers and ripped their stems in half.

I paused, my chest heaving, my cheeks clammy with tears.

He knelt before me, delicately plucking a flower. “Peonies are useful in all sorts of healing and protective potions. We could use these for ingredients.”

“Then you should thank me. I’ve given you enough to last you a lifetime.” I rubbed my sleeve hard against my eyes. “I’m sorry about the potion. And your sense of taste. And this. I can’t even stand still in your shop without my magic destroying something. How . . . how am I supposed to learn to bless my father?”

“We’ll find a way.” He continued to gather flowers, and for the first time I noticed how his hands shook. How loud his breathing was. How his skin had grown white as chalk.

I was so wrapped up in my own failure I hadn’t noticed that he was in pain. “Don’t trouble yourself with these,” I said, tugging on some flowers tucked between the floorboards. “You’re exhausted.”

“No, no, I’m fine. My magic can make me a little winded, nothing more.”

My stomach clenched. “Are you certain you’re all right?”

His eyes wrinkled at the corners when he smiled. “Never better.”

He might be a talented wizard, but he was a dismal liar.

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