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Authors: Chanel Austen
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easy camaraderie found in close friends- the kind of people you expected to spend a lifetime with.
It took me a long moment to recognize the girl in the left, to connect the broad laughing grin and bright hazel eyes with the slightly gaping stare and lightless orbs of the very dead young woman just downstairs from me. So different in life and death… yet they were one and the same.
Emily Albright. I now had her name. It only strengthened my resolve.
"She was nineteen." Jimmy said quietly, "Only a new initiate."
"Initiate," I repeated, "She was a part of the coven here."
"Yes." Was the short reply, but Swann didn't explain further, waiting for me to continue.
I didn't disappoint, "She was one of them and they killed her? Or someone outside of the coven, another mage killed her?"
A nod.
"Are you a member?" I asked the all-important question, watching Swann closely for his answer. It was possible, through air vibrations and magical sense to detect lies. However I didn't know the skill, or even have knowledge of the possibility at the time. All I could do was stare my fellow mage down and hope that I could read something from him.
Swann met my gaze steadily, "I'm not," He replied evenly, "But I'm going to join up."
I stared outright at him. He sounded completely serious, "Even knowing that they might be responsible for what happened to that girl?"
"Yes." He said with absolute certainty, and then waved off my next indignant protest, "Listen, Nick. Why did you come to UD? Wasn't it because you followed the clues left online for those talented enough with magic to recognize? The legitimately magical from the fantastically arcane. No User can learn to wield their magic without a coven backing them, and a mage who finds enemies within a coven is dead with no one to help them. It's cutthroat politics yeah, but it's the world we live in. Tell me I'm wrong, dude."
He wasn't wrong, and I knew it. That was almost exactly why I came here, and struck disturbingly close to the problems I had in the past with other mages, though not on all points. After all, there were other threats to mages in the magical world beyond other mages… but I wasn't about to expound on that to a stranger like James Swann, not yet.
Still, James had read me correctly, although in hindsight it couldn't have been very hard to guess why a freshman mage came all the way from Virginia to go to school in Detroit.
"You might not have ended up here, of course." James continued, "If you look deep enough there are trails all over the internet. Detroit, Chicago, New York, L.A, New Orleans. Anywhere in the United States that contains a significant population is statistically more likely to have a significant number of magical users. The trails are all there."
"Detroit doesn't fit that list." I countered, and it was true, the population here was south of a million. Nowhere near New York or L.A.
He nodded in agreement, "Yeah the city has been in decline, especially since the auto crisis. But I think that's one of the reasons its online trail is more pronounced than the others. It makes it easier to track, so more mages could find it." Swann leaned in, a mischievous spark in his eye made more pronounced by his smile, "This time and place, here? It's a time of opportunity. It's a turning point, and we can influence the turn."
I digested his words, weighing them in my mind, attempting to get a read on him. It was a tempting thing, power to change the world to our liking. It was a coveted ability that few had and many wished to gain. To be able to look in the mirror and lazily float my toothbrush above a single hand… I had done it many times. It was power, it came with the certainty that I could affect the world in ways that others couldn't, and make a real difference.
But the road to hell was paved with good intentions. The age old axiom still stood timeless for a reason, and I couldn't ignore that despite magic, I was still human. I could still mess up. The
It took me a long moment to recognize the girl in the left, to connect the broad laughing grin and bright hazel eyes with the slightly gaping stare and lightless orbs of the very dead young woman just downstairs from me. So different in life and death… yet they were one and the same.
Emily Albright. I now had her name. It only strengthened my resolve.
"She was nineteen." Jimmy said quietly, "Only a new initiate."
"Initiate," I repeated, "She was a part of the coven here."
"Yes." Was the short reply, but Swann didn't explain further, waiting for me to continue.
I didn't disappoint, "She was one of them and they killed her? Or someone outside of the coven, another mage killed her?"
A nod.
"Are you a member?" I asked the all-important question, watching Swann closely for his answer. It was possible, through air vibrations and magical sense to detect lies. However I didn't know the skill, or even have knowledge of the possibility at the time. All I could do was stare my fellow mage down and hope that I could read something from him.
Swann met my gaze steadily, "I'm not," He replied evenly, "But I'm going to join up."
I stared outright at him. He sounded completely serious, "Even knowing that they might be responsible for what happened to that girl?"
"Yes." He said with absolute certainty, and then waved off my next indignant protest, "Listen, Nick. Why did you come to UD? Wasn't it because you followed the clues left online for those talented enough with magic to recognize? The legitimately magical from the fantastically arcane. No User can learn to wield their magic without a coven backing them, and a mage who finds enemies within a coven is dead with no one to help them. It's cutthroat politics yeah, but it's the world we live in. Tell me I'm wrong, dude."
He wasn't wrong, and I knew it. That was almost exactly why I came here, and struck disturbingly close to the problems I had in the past with other mages, though not on all points. After all, there were other threats to mages in the magical world beyond other mages… but I wasn't about to expound on that to a stranger like James Swann, not yet.
Still, James had read me correctly, although in hindsight it couldn't have been very hard to guess why a freshman mage came all the way from Virginia to go to school in Detroit.
"You might not have ended up here, of course." James continued, "If you look deep enough there are trails all over the internet. Detroit, Chicago, New York, L.A, New Orleans. Anywhere in the United States that contains a significant population is statistically more likely to have a significant number of magical users. The trails are all there."
"Detroit doesn't fit that list." I countered, and it was true, the population here was south of a million. Nowhere near New York or L.A.
He nodded in agreement, "Yeah the city has been in decline, especially since the auto crisis. But I think that's one of the reasons its online trail is more pronounced than the others. It makes it easier to track, so more mages could find it." Swann leaned in, a mischievous spark in his eye made more pronounced by his smile, "This time and place, here? It's a time of opportunity. It's a turning point, and we can influence the turn."
I digested his words, weighing them in my mind, attempting to get a read on him. It was a tempting thing, power to change the world to our liking. It was a coveted ability that few had and many wished to gain. To be able to look in the mirror and lazily float my toothbrush above a single hand… I had done it many times. It was power, it came with the certainty that I could affect the world in ways that others couldn't, and make a real difference.
But the road to hell was paved with good intentions. The age old axiom still stood timeless for a reason, and I couldn't ignore that despite magic, I was still human. I could still mess up. The
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