Spells

Laurel angled her body that way too but kept peering at Mara out of the corner of her eye. The slender, languid faerie lounged against the counter with the grace and beauty of a ballerina, but her eyes took in the whole room, weighed it in the balance, and seemed to find it wanting. Could they have ever really been friends?

An entourage of middle-aged-looking faeries strode into the room, the one in the lead clapping her hands for the students’ attention. “Gather, please,” she said in a surprisingly quiet voice. But the sound carried throughout the room, which had gone completely silent. Every faerie had stopped talking and turned to the instructors as they entered.

Well, Laurel thought, that’s way different from at home.

The faeries walked in from all sides of the room to gather in a large circle around the twenty or so teachers. The faerie who had called everyone together took the lead. “Anyone starting a new project today?”

A few hands went up. As soon as they did, the other faeries shuffled and made room for them to come to the front. One at a time each faerie – or sometimes a small group – described the project they were starting, its purpose, how they planned to go about doing it, how long they thought it would take, and other details. They fielded a few questions from the staff and even some from the other students.

The projects all sounded very complex, and the faeries kept using phrases Laurel didn’t understand; phrases like monastuolo receptors and eukaryotic resistance matrices and capryilic hleocræft vectors. After a few minutes of this her attention began to wander. She glanced around the circle as the faeries made their presentations. The other faeries were standing quietly, listening. No one fidgeted; hardly anyone whispered, and even when they did, it seemed to be about the project being described. It was almost half an hour before all the new projects were accounted for, and everyone remained quiet and attentive.

It was a little creepy.

“Did anyone complete a project yesterday?” the instructor asked, once everyone had reported. A few more hands went up, and again the crowd shuffled to bring those students to the front.

As the faeries reported on their finished projects, Laurel glanced round the classroom with fresh eyes. The plants that grew here were as varied as those growing outside, but they seemed more haphazard in their diversity. Many were surrounded by sheaves of paper, scientific equipment, or fabrics strategically draped to filter the sunlight. This wasn’t a greenhouse, really; it was a laboratory.

“When I observed your project last week, it didn’t seem to be going well.” One of the professors, a male faerie with a deep, rich voice, was questioning a small brunette faerie who looked quite young.

“It wasn’t,” the faerie said simply, without any kind of shame or self-consciousness. “In the end, the project was a complete failure.”

Laurel cringed, waiting for the derisive whispers and giggles.

But they didn’t come.

She glanced around. The other faeries were paying very close attention. In fact, several were nodding as the faerie described various aspects of her failure. No one seemed discouraged in the least. Another big – and rather refreshing – difference from home.

“So what do you have planned now?” the same teacher questioned.

The young faerie didn’t miss a beat. “I have more studying to do to determine why the serum didn’t work, but once that is complete, I would like to start again. I’m determined to find a way to restore the use of the viridefaeco potion to Avalon.”

The instructor thought about this for a moment. “I’ll approve that,” he finally said. “One more round. Then you will need to return to your regular studies.”

The young faerie nodded and said thank you before returning to the circle.

“Anyone else?” the head instructor asked. The faeries looked around for raised hands, but there were none. “Before you disperse,” the instructor said, “I think you are all aware that Laurel has returned to us, even if only for a short while.”

Eyes turned to Laurel. She got a few smiles but mostly curious stares.

“She will be with us for the next several weeks. Please allow her to observe you freely. Answer her questions. There is no need for her to decant anything, particularly if it is a delicate undertaking, but please take the time to explain to her what you are doing, how, and why. Dismissed.” She clapped her hands once more, and the faeries dispersed.

“What now?” Laurel whispered to Katya. The buzz of conversation had returned to the room, but whispering still felt appropriate to Laurel after the silence of the last hour.

“We go work,” Katya said simply. “I have two long-term projects I’m working on right now, and then repetition work.”

“Repetition work?”

“Making simple potions and serums for the other faeries in Avalon. We learn how to make them when we’re quite young, but they only trust the higher level students to prepare the products that are actually distributed among the populace. We have monthly quotas and I’ve been so focused on my pear tree that I’m a little behind.”

“You all just…work? On whatever you want?”

“Well, advanced projects need to be approved by the faculty. They’ll wander through here and check up on us periodically. But yes, we decide on our own projects.”

The whole process reminded Laurel of the years she’d spent being homeschooled by her mother, building a curriculum around her personal interests and learning everything at her own pace. She smiled at the memory, even though she had long since stopped begging her mom to return to homeschooling – thanks in no small part to David and her friend Chelsea.

But here Laurel didn’t have a project of her own, and wandering the room didn’t seem like it would help her actually learn anything. Even after two weeks of memorising plant uses, she simply didn’t know enough to ask meaningful questions of the students. So she was relieved when she saw a familiar face enter the room – an emotion she had doubted she would ever feel upon seeing the stern face of Yeardley, the fundamentals instructor.

“Is she ready?” Yeardley asked, addressing Katya instead of her.

Katya smiled and prodded Laurel forward. “She’s all yours.”

Laurel followed Yeardley to a station at the table lined with equipment. Without so much as a greeting, he began to quiz her on the second batch of books she had been reading the past week. She didn’t feel complete confidence in any of her answers, but Yeardley seemed pleased enough with her progress. He reached into his own shoulder bag and pulled out…more books.

Disappointment washed over her. “I thought I was done reading,” Laurel said before she could stop herself.

“You are never done,” Yeardley said, as if it were a bad word. “Each caste has its essential nature. The essence of Spring magic is social; it trades on empathy. Summer faeries must hone their sense of aesthetics; without art, their magic is thin indeed. The essence of our magic is intellect; knowledge gleaned through careful study is the reservoir from which our intuition draws its power.”

That didn’t sound like magic to Laurel. Mostly it sounded like a lot of hard work.

“That said, these are my books, not yours.”

Laurel managed to stifle a sigh of relief.

“Laurel.”

She looked up at the tone of his voice. It wasn’t stern, the way it had been a moment earlier. It was tense – worried, even – but there was a softness to it that hadn’t been there before.

“Normally at this point I would begin teaching you rudimentary potions. Lotions, cleansing serums, nutritional tonics – that sort of thing. The things we teach novices. But you’re going to have to come back at a less important time and learn those or catch up on your own. I’m going to teach you defensive herbology. Jamison insisted, and I’m in full agreement with his decision.”

Laurel nodded, feeling a rush run through her. Not just from excitement at starting actual lessons, but because of the reason for the acceleration: the threat of the trolls. This was what she’d been waiting for.

“Most of what I teach you will be beyond your abilities to replicate, likely for quite some time, but it will be a start. I expect you to work hard, for your own sake more than mine.”

“Of course,” Laurel replied earnestly.

“I’ve had you reading about a variety of plants and their uses. What you may not yet realise is that making potions, serum, elixirs, and the like is not simply about mixing essences together in the right amounts. There is always a general guideline – a recipe, if you will – but the process as well as the result will differ from one Fall faerie to the next. What we teach in the Academy is not about recipes, but following your intuition – trusting the ability that is your birthright, and using your knowledge of nature to enhance the lives of everyone in Avalon. Because the most essential ingredient in any mixture is you – the Fall faerie. No one else can do what you do, not even if they follow your rituals with unerring precision.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a small pot with a little green plant growing in it, its buds tightly closed.

“You must learn to feel the very core of the nature you work with,” he continued, touching the plant gently, “and to form a connection with it, so close, so intimate, that you know not only how to bend its components to your will” – he searched through a row of bottles and picked one up, opening it and dabbing a drop of its contents on his finger—“but to unlock its potential and allow it to thrive as no one else can.” He carefully touched each of the closed blossoms with his wet finger and as he pulled his hand away, the tiny buds opened to reveal bright purple flowers.

He looked up into Laurel’s wide eyes. “Shall we begin?”

Chapter Seven (#ulink_b1a67826-448d-54a8-b6c7-85fad628fbd7)

Laurel knelt on the bench in front of her window with her nose pressed against the glass, squinting at the path that led to the front gates of the Academy. Tamani said he’d arrive at eleven o’clock, but she couldn’t help but hope he would come early.

Disappointed, she wandered back to her work – today, a monastuolo serum that was clearly going horribly wrong. But Yeardley insisted that seeing her failures through to the end, even when she knew they were doomed, would teach her better what not to do. It seemed like a waste of time to Laurel, but she had learned not to second-guess Yeardley. Despite his gruff exterior, the past month had shown her another side of him. He was obsessed with herbology and nothing delighted him more than a devoted student. And he was always, always right. Still, Laurel remained sceptical of this particular rule.

She was about to sit down and toss in the next component when someone knocked on her door. Finally! Taking a moment to check her hair and clothes in the mirror, Laurel took a deep breath and opened her door to Celia, the familiar Spring faerie who had not only cut her note cards but done hundreds of little favours for her over the last few weeks.