Chapter 14. Like a Butterfly

  [Calypso]

  “You look suspiciously happy today, Cal. Did you finally find your Owl?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You might as well have ‘I had an amazing night’ written on your forehead in lipstick. And given that I haven’t seen you this happy all year, well, the conclusion’s pretty obvious. Oh wait, I meant written in paint, yeah, that’s what I meant to say,” Dayon said with an air of importance.

  And cracked up along with Delson while I grumbled in protest.

  As usual, I was having breakfast with the di Vern-Rodinger brothers. I was finishing my favorite ginger tea with lemon, occasionally glancing over at Lorelei sitting at the other end of the hall with her classmates. At one point she clearly sensed someone watching her, caught my eye, and smiled a little shyly. She has one hell of a beautiful smile. And I’m glad she smiles like that at me specifically. The possessive part of me was purring with satisfaction.

  Our steamy evening had smoothly turned into a hot night and a scorching morning. I hadn’t slept worth a damn and felt like the happiest sleep-deprived person in the world.

  A languid satisfaction filled me to the brim, and my rumpled face was probably giving me away completely.

  Lori and I had agreed not to make a show of eating together. I honestly didn’t care about the others, but I understood Lori’s desire not to attract even more attention. People had been gossiping about us nonstop since Lori first showed up at the academy, and after the whole kernal fiasco the entire academy was buzzing — all anyone could talk about was me and Lorelei. The Rodingers were keeping me up to date on the fresh gossip that Margarita d’Acura was constantly feeding them.

  “…and they’re also saying that Lori drained you, took all your magic, and that’s why you felt sick yesterday, that’s why you didn’t stay with us, didn’t show your face all evening, and basically felt awful all night.”

  “What delightful nonsense,” I snorted, thinking that Lori had indeed drained me, but definitely not in the magical sense.

  “Margarita’s tongue could use some shortening.”

  “Nah, we’d rather not shorten it but put it to, uh, good use, right Delson?” “Dayon winked at his brother.”

  “To good work,” Delson nodded with a sly smile.

  “By the way, care to join us? Margarita clearly wouldn’t mind…”

  “But I would,” I smirked, mentally making plans for the coming nights with Lori, who had apparently taken over my entire brain.

  “And Margarita’s mean daddy would too, if he found out how you two are corrupting his precious little girl.”

  “We’re not corrupting, we’re conducting educational activities,” Dayon said with a serious expression, spreading butter on his toast and winking at Margarita sitting off to the side with her friends.

  “And that’s assuming he figures it out and actually finds us afterward,” Delson added with the same sly smile.

  “Which will be pretty difficult, since we’re heading back to Taylon soon.”

  “What, already leaving the academy?”

  “Yeah, in about a month or two, probably. We’ve pretty much finished our main training, and from here on our magical development continues on our own. The Mentor thinks we’ve gotten everything we can out of the academy and can sail our own course from now on. Literally sail,” Delson smirked.

  I nodded in understanding. The di Vern-Rodingers were dreymons — beings with a water essence, something between a demon and a water dragon. In their true form they could inspire terror in anyone, but in their human guise they had such pretty faces that they attracted the attention of every girl their age like magnets. Which the brothers shamelessly exploited.

  By the way, I only just now realized that I’d never seen Lori look at any guys the way she looked at me…

  “What about you, Cal?”

  “What about me?”

  “How much longer are you planning to hang around Armarillis?”

  I shrugged.

  Armarillis didn’t have a strict number of years of training. People stayed not until a certain age, but until they reached certain skills — when the Mentor decided the academy had given a Fortemin everything it could give, they were free to leave if they wanted.

  Fortemins served various functions, and plenty of us actually stayed and lived at Armarillis, working for the academy every day. But even more combined their service to Armarillis with other responsibilities.

  Take the Rodingers — they were actually royalty, princes from Lakor. They had plenty to do given their status, so once they’d acquired the necessary skills at Armarillis for fighting dark forces, they’d head off to conquer the Taylon Sea and deal with local problems, ready at any moment to answer the Mentor’s call to handle some nasty dark creature in whatever territory needed it.

  We all had special artifact bracelets that helped us stay in contact anywhere in the world, or even in different worlds.

  The Rodingers had it good — they knew exactly what they’d be doing after the academy, with their own political intrigues, problems, and entertainment waiting for them.

  But me… Where did I fit in?

  “I don’t know. I still have things to do here for now. Plus I’m acting as Lorelei’s warden, no idea how long that’ll take.”

  “Have you figured out what you’ll do after you finish your training?”

  I shrugged again, feeling irritation creeping up.

  The topic was a bit of a sore spot for me, because I couldn’t really see where I fit in the world, so to speak. I didn’t have any particularly distinctive skills. I was good at everything to some degree, whatever I tried my hand at. Water magic, fire, air, mental… Any kind I started studying. Sounds great, right? On one hand, sure. On the other — having so many paths open to me made it hard to choose.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I could do everything but wanted nothing. Well, actually… What I really wanted was to dive deep into studying dark magic and especially shadow magic. I was staying at Armarillis because it was currently the most convenient place to do that, with access to an excellent lab and a magnificent library. It would be even easier with my father’s permission, but… That was exactly what I needed to talk to him about today.

  Speaking of him. The Mentor interrupted my plans when, shortly after breakfast, I was watching Lori gather with the other adepts near the training grounds, waiting for the teleportation exam.

  Lori had playfully punched my shoulder beforehand and said indignantly:

  “So why did you have to withdraw my exam application if you just put it back yourself, huh?…”

  I didn’t answer, just smiled mysteriously.

  The thing was, I hadn’t put her application back. Because I hadn’t withdrawn anything. Why the hell Eric had lied to his sister was a good question I intended to ask him when I got the chance.

  “I have half an hour free,” Ilforte said without greeting, his voice coming from my communication artifact bracelet.

  “We need to talk. Meet me at the main gates of Armarillis in five minutes.”

  “Lori’s about to take her teleportation exam. As her warden, I should be there to observe and monitor,” I objected.

  “If something goes wrong, I’ll need to act fast.”

  “Sirinity and Elza will be watching her, so Lorelei will be under total supervision, as you can imagine. Don’t worry about it. Stop making excuses, you can’t avoid talking to me anyway. I’m waiting.”

  My father disconnected, and I sighed heavily, raising my eyes to the sky.

  ‘Stop making excuses,’ right, of course, he senses and understands perfectly well that I’m not exactly eager to talk to him right now. The conversation was inevitable after my showing off with the shadow artifacts — I knew that. But I’d hoped to avoid it at least until evening.

  The bracelet beeped again, the white button flashed, and my father’s voice came through once more:

  “And stop rolling your eyes,” he added with amusement, then disconnected again.

  A nervous chuckle escaped my lips.

  You really had to envy my father’s perceptiveness.

  I met my father at the main gates of Armarillis, and he immediately teleported us to a quiet, deserted coastline somewhere. The wild beach was empty, coarse sand crunching under our feet.

  We walked along a huge sheer cliff. Neither of us spoke, in no hurry to start the conversation. I knew it would be difficult, and honestly would have preferred to just walk silently along the sea for a couple of hours, then teleport back to the academy and return to training.

  My relationship with my father is, well… not the smoothest. Or rather, how do I put it…

  I have great parents who’ve always openly shown their love and care for me. I’ve never felt deprived of attention — I really can’t complain about that. My parents are always composed and serious in public, but among close family they’re, well… warm, soft. Mom never misses a chance to hug me, and Dad doesn’t pretend to be some icy impenetrable fortress. I had a happy childhood and adolescence that many could envy.

  It’s just that our difference in magic made itself known as I grew and developed and quickly realized that the confines of white magic alone, which Armarillis emphasized, weren’t enough for me.

  My father was a white mage to his core, and my intense interest in dark magic really worried him. His feelings about it were rather painful, and many times over the past couple of years our conversations on this topic had escalated into heated arguments.

  Father tried every way to hold back my development in dark magic, but I believed then and still believe now that there are many unexplored areas in this field that can and should be studied, understood, developed.

  After all, dark magic isn’t necessarily some terrible evil that only brings bad things, right?

  After all, one of the two best warriors among the Fortemins is Elza Clarkson, who’s actually a greater supreme demon, a supreme necromancer. Terrifying darkness, but she stands on the side of good, protects worlds from all kinds of dark creatures and helps destroy demons. Including greater demons like herself who stand on the side of evil. So why should I be any different? Just yesterday I basically saved all of Group Five and Professor Ditro precisely because of my interest in dark magic! How is that bad?

  Anyway, I didn’t know what to expect from my father and was tensely anticipating some kind of storm and another argument until we were both hoarse.

  But the storm wasn’t rushing to break out — Ilforte wasn’t in any hurry to start the conversation. He walked with me in silence for quite a while, looking around with a slight, peaceful smile. He looked as if we’d just stepped out for a stroll, for no reason, with no purpose of having an unpleasant conversation away from prying ears.

  My father looked calm and relaxed, but the longer he stayed silent, the more tense I became. Not exactly nervous, but my father had this remarkable ability to make everyone around him twitch nervously just by staying silent, waiting for some trick. I think it’s some kind of hidden innate gift of his. Not a magical one, but I’m not sure which is worse.

  “How far have you gotten in studying shadow magic?” Ilforte asked abruptly at one point.

  I slowly inhaled and exhaled.

  Well, here we go.

  “Pretty far,” I answered guardedly.

  “Without a master, without a good guide into this sphere of magic, stepping forward is very dangerous,” Ilforte said evenly.

  “We’ve talked about this many times. Shadow magic is dark magic from the flip side of the world, the spirit world. And it manifests very aggressively and unpredictably in people who have no connection to the nature of spiritual beings.”

  “Well, there are no masters in our world,” I smirked.

  “I’ve gathered all available information from every known source, and beyond that there’s only stepping into the unknown.”

  This was true — shadow magic really was still poorly understood. The Inquisition’s General Staff had made significant strides in studying this magic in recent years, but it was still only a tiny fraction of what shadow magic could do.

  “Exactly. There are no masters. Not a single one. And without one, you risk falling into a dark abyss and never climbing out. I’ve told you this many times.”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I smirked.

  “Calypso, I’m not in the mood for jokes right now. This is a very serious thing . I didn’t forbid you from experimenting with shadow magic for nothing. It’s dangerous. I trusted your word and didn’t make you take a magical oath. And you?…”

  I narrowed my eyes at my father, feeling my irritation growing.

  “If not for my experiments, we wouldn’t have survived yesterday.”

  Ilforte sighed heavily and wearily rubbed his temples.

  “Yes… That’s actually remarkable. And that’s exactly why I’m not screaming my head off at you right now, but speaking as calmly as possible, as you may have noticed.”

  “Oh, you can actually scream your head off?” I said skeptically.

  I’d never heard my father yell, let alone curse. Raise his voice — sure, he could do that. But crude swearing wasn’t his style. He was more the type to silently kill you with a look.

  Ilforte smiled.

  “Absolutely, if pushed far enough. Zael can confirm. And you almost pushed me there.”

  “Damn, I missed quite a show,” I clicked my tongue in disappointment.

  Ilforte’s smile widened, but he immediately turned serious again.

  “What exactly drives you to delve into dark magic, Calypso?”

  I shrugged.

  “Strange question. I’m just interested.”

  “And honestly?”

  “I am being honest.”

  “What if you’re honest with yourself?”

  Ilforte stopped, turned to me, looking into my eyes.

  “‘Just interested’ isn’t an answer at all. You’re not ‘just’ interested. You have an intense drive toward this. What’s pushing you?”

  “I just want to be the best,” I shrugged again.

  “That’s closer to the point. Anything else to add?”

  I looked away.

  Playing ‘staring contests’ with my father, I always lose. He’s probably the only person in the world whose prolonged direct gaze I can’t handle. It’s like he sees right through me, better than I see myself.