The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

“Oh, I recall.”

“I’ll probably do it again.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Then let’s not, shall we?”

“My shoes can be cleaned.”

“Maybe I’ll aim higher next time.”

“Sam,” Morgan chided.

“What?” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“This is for your own good,” Randall said.

“Really. That’s how you’re going to spin this? Why now? In the middle of this shitstorm, now is when you decide to be more hands-on?”

The skin under Randall’s right eye twitched, and I thought maybe I was wearing him down, at least a little bit. “Because of the level of magic you’ve exhibited.”

And that—well. I wasn’t expecting that. “Excuse me?”

“What happened in the desert?”

I frowned at him. “I got Zero on our side. Or rather, we got him on our side. Tiggy did some smashing. You know how it goes.”

“Before that.”

I didn’t know— “The sand mermaids.”

He nodded. “The sand mermaids. What you did, Sam, is not something you should have been able to do. It’s not something anyone should have been able to do.”

“How did you—no. You know what? I don’t even want to know.” Because it meant someone in my group had a fat mouth. Sure, it could be disguised as concern, but still.

“We’re… worried,” Morgan said. “It’s one thing to be powerful. It’s another to let your emotions dictate your magic.”

“That’s not fair.” I took a step back away from them. It felt like they were coming at me from all sides, and I couldn’t help the resentment that flooded through me. “They had Tiggy and Ryan. I wasn’t going to let them—”

“Do you even remember it?” Randall asked me. “Do you even remember what you did?”

No. I didn’t. “Mostly.”

“What words did you use?”

“What?”

“The words, Sam,” Randall said. “What words of the ancient tongue did you say aloud? And if they were not spoken, what words did you think?”

“I didn’t—”

“You didn’t?”

“I didn’t have time to think of words,” I amended, aware of how neatly I was being trapped.

“Magic is a construct,” Randall said, as if I’d never had that drilled into me before. “It’s building blocks. It’s an amalgamation of what you’ve learned, what we’ve taught you. The old words are there as the pieces to be put together by one fluent in the arts. It takes years to be able to use them aloud and even longer to be able to just think them. Wizards spend their whole lives training to do something you’ve accomplished in a decade.”

“You’ve said it before. That I’m not like anyone else.”