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  Chapter 8

  The next day, Lydia woke at First Bell instead of Baker's Bell as she usually did. She sat up, momentarily disoriented, then remembered the night before and checked Meeplar. The fuzzling was fine.

  Lydia dressed and started for the dining hall, only to halt in amazement out in the no longer plain corridor. She remembered a confused impression of color from the night before, but this—! The students' doorways were decorated in wildly different, extremely creative ways, each door a unique work of art. Some of them stretched the definitions of art, but all of them were distinctly individual.

  “What happened out here, Meeplar?”

  The fuzzling had no answer. Lydia continued to the dining hall, gawking like a tourist at each door design.

  After breakfast, Lydia made her way to Sarrin's chambers, just as usual. Inside, she found a surprise.

  “Your Eminence,” she said, bowing deeply. The woman at the head of the Circle of Lights, clad in the order's only shining white robe, acknowledged her with a regal nod of her head.

  “Good morning, student Lydia,” she said, her voice old and creaky, but still strong. “I trust you slept well after your ordeal?”

  “I did, ma'am. The stuff that Shellani gave me worked very well, and I had no nightmares.”

  “Good. Now, would you care to explain what happened?”

  Lydia swallowed hard. She'd known someone would ask, but not the most important woman in the Circle. “I went for a walk,” she said in a very small voice. “I—I wanted to see the Temple, and some of the city. I was upset, because I can't do anything right, and I wanted to get away from the Hall for a little while. I went to the Temple, then I went to the sculpture garden. Meeplar and I were looking at the art when suddenly she screamed and somebody put a bag over my head and knocked me out with magic. I woke up again in a cage and saw Meeplar hanging upside down.” She paused, swallowed hard, then gathered her willpower and told the truth. “I messed up then. I didn't think to try and get Meeplar down, just started feeling sorry for myself. She hung upside down until. . . she. . . almost died. Then I felt that she was dying and made the magic work to get her free. I sent her away and she came back with a lot of Lights.”

  Elmene, Head of the Circle, gave Lydia a severe look. “Do you understand that leaving the sanctuary of the Hall without an escort is wrong and dangerous?”

  Lydia hung her head. “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  “Do you understand that through your willful disobedience you nearly cost your familiar her life and roused all of the active Clusters currently in Caissa? People, I might add, who are in desperate need of their rest.”

  “Your Eminence, please—” Sarrin raised a hand in protest, but was waved to silence.

  “Answer, child.”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.” Lydia burned with shame. Tears prickled at her eyes again, thinking of what she'd done to Meeplar.

  “Do you also understand that you must serve pennance for your actions?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.” Lydia almost wanted whatever pennance the old lady came up with. Maybe it would make her feel better.

  “Good. You will suspend your studies for four days, beginning immediately. During this time, you will be restricted to bread and water, and I want you in the library every day, researching the bond some people share with familiars. I want you to write a treatise on everything you learn about this bond and why it is important and have it on my desk first thing in the morning of the fifth day from now. Is this understood?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence,” Lydia said to the floor. It could be worse, truly it could, and the research would at least be interesting. Of course, every word would remind her of how she'd almost failed her own familiar, but penance wasn't supposed to be pleasant.

  “And now, child, we come to the reason why I am truly here. Tell me, in detail, exactly what you did to free your familiar.”

  Lydia looked up in surprise. “I called fire,” she said.

  “Is that all?”

  “Well, I made a cushion of air to catch the poor thing, so she didn't fall to the ground.”

  “Nothing happened inside yourself?”

  “Uh. . .” Lydia thought a moment. Did she really want to know that part? Better not take any chances. “I got angry at myself and made myself do it right. I fail at everything magical so often, but I just had to get this right, so I did.”

  “That's all? You got angry, then things worked. Hmm.” Elmene paused, rubbing her chin. “I want you to do it again. Call light.”

  Lydia resisted the urge to panic and did it. She wasn't sure who was more surprised, herself or Sarrin, when a little ball of light popped into existence, hovering over her hand. The Head, however, only nodded.

  “Very good, child. You may extinguish it now. I want you to add something to your days from now on, including the days of your penance. You will make sure to cast at least one spell a day, every day, with no anger in your heart. Understood?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.” Why, she wondered.

  “Very well. I will leave you to your penance now. Sarrin? Come with me.”

  Lydia looked desperately at her mentor, questions burning inside her, but bowed and left. What choice did she have, after all, when the Head told her to go?

  She went straight to the Library to begin her penance. This wouldn't be easy, she knew. Very few books mentioned familiars, for whatever reason, and she didn't even know where to begin. Meeplar followed along behind her.

  The Library was a vast room, on the same scale as everything else in this huge complex. Where to start, where to start. . . She chose an aisle pretty much at random and plunged in.

  Over the course of the next four days, Lydia got very hungry, but learned a great deal about familiars. They came in all shapes and sizes, everything from domestic animals (the most ridiculous recorded animal being a sheep) to other-planar creatures, like fuzzlings. She learned that they had varying degrees of power, but all amplified the abilities of their human partner in some way so the two together were much more than either separate. She learned that the more powerful the familiar, the smarter it got. This made her frown a bit, puzzled, as she watched Meeplar roll across the floor, wrapped around a stray bit of scrap paper. Weren't fuzzlings supposed to be remarkably powerful? She sure didn't act remarkably intelligent most of the time. Then she reminded herself Meeplar was only a baby and went back to work.

  No one really knew what made the familiar bond possible. People speculated on every possibility from empathy to a character flaw, but no one really knew why familiars were drawn to some people but not others. Scholars generally agreed, though, that familiars liked mages with the most power. If a mage had a familiar, even a sheep, it was a guarantee that the mage was very strong.

  Lydia wrote up what she learned, and her own conclusions about the information, and turned it in on the appointed day. Then she went to the dining hall and got herself a real breakfast.

  She'd been dilligent about her other assignment, as well, making certain to cast at least one spell a day without any anger inside. Lydia could scarcely believe how easy it was now, after all the struggle and failure of before. All she had to do was think of light, now, and light appeared. It felt good to do those little bits of magic. She also worked her way through all the lessons she'd failed at over the last few months, astonished at the ease of working the spells now. What had happened to her? She must have broken through the block they'd told her about. Magic was fun now, an enjoyable exercise, not something to be dreaded and struggled with.

  She reported to Sarrin's suite filled with anticipation. Finally, now she could ask all the questions she'd stored up inside!

  “Good morning,” Sarrin said, when Lydia walked in.

  “Hello! Can I ask you questons now?”

  Sarrin laughed. “My, aren't you eager this morning. What is on your mind?”

  “I want to know what happened. . . you know, that night. Why did so many people come to r
escue me?”

  Sarrin lost her smile. “I knew you would ask that. It's not something you should dwell on, really, because it was out of your control. . . Whatever you did to rescue Meeplar was felt by every single mage in this city. The Clusters currently in residence saw that the raw power belonged to someone trained by the Circle and were already halfway to the source when your fuzzling found them and showed them the right place. It was very impressive. And now. . . you have noticed a difference?”

  “Yes!” Lydia felt a bit of shock at the thought of every mage in town feeling something she did, but pushed it away. “Magic is easy now! And. . . why are all the doors in the student hall suddenly decorated? They look very pretty, but why? And when did that happen?”

  Sarrin laughed. “It happened long before you got here, little one. But you weren't allowing yourself to see it. All of those decorations are made of magic.”

  “Really?” Lydia blinked. “How? I want to learn how to do that!”

  “I will show you soon enough. For now, we need to move on to the review. Can you tell me. . .”

  Lydia received another shock later that day. Her riding lesson went amazingly well. She didn't fall off once.

  “Lydia!” Kara exclaimed, after she'd successfully trotted over five cavaletti without even a wobble. “Is this really you? Who are you, and what have you done with my real student?”

  Lydia giggled. “No, I'm still me. I just feel. . . I don't know, more balanced today. Like I can do anything without falling over.”

  “Excellent. Let's take advantage of that feeling, then. Out to the rail and pick up a left lead canter.”

  Her afternoon magic lesson went equally well. Sarrin walked her through all the spells she'd been practicing, then assigned her two new ones to learn and another book on theory to read. Then later, she had another success at dance class: her body did everything she told it to, perfectly and without complaint. Amazing! What a fantastic day!

  That day set what became a new pattern for Lydia. Without the constant failure, her life became unimaginably better. She still missed the bakery, but not with the all-consuming longing of before. Now she missed the people more than the baking. The joy that filled her now with every use of magic made her finally understand how people could give up things they loved for magic. She no longer wanted to return to the mundane, ordinary life of a baker's apprentice, not if it meant the loss of this wonderful power and the chance to use it every single day.

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  look for other titles in this series:

  In Service of the Light

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  the Evil Kitten Project