First Witch's Tale

The magician smiled, as if I had asked a very stupid question. “This is Whitehall, Janis,” he said. “You must have come a very long way.”

I nodded, suddenly aware – too - of just how terrible I looked. My clothes were torn and tattered, my hair dripping out of my scarf and spilling around my shoulders. I should have donned male guise, but I doubted it would have fooled anyone … and it might have been worse for me if it had. I didn’t look like a prospective apprentice. I looked like someone who had been living in the forest for the last year.

“I came from Bramble Fire,” I said. I knew even as I spoke that he would never have heard of my home village. It was one of many such villages that were barely known outside the district. “I … My Lord, I … I heard Whitehall was taking female students.”

“Did you now?” Bernard De Born’s expression gave nothing away. “And where did you hear that?”

I felt a sudden terrible fear that my entire journey had been for nothing. “A peddler passed through the village. He told us that the school was accepting students, people willing to be educated in the new way of magic. He said there were female students already and that … and that any who went would be welcome. I …”

My legs buckled. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“It is true the risks of teaching magic to women, and encouraging them to use it, have been much reduced,” he said. His tone was flat, his face unreadable. “But we have no female students. Julianne … is not precisely a student.”

My heart sank. “Then let me be the first!”

He smiled, just for a second. “You have nerve. I’ll grant you that, if nothing else. But do you have the stubbornness, and determination, to succeed in magic? To learn the trade without shortcuts, the kind of shortcuts that are explicitly forbidden within the school? To bear the burden of knowledge, knowledge that will cut you off from your relatives … perhaps forever? If you step through these doors, your life will never be the same again.”

“My relatives don’t want to see me again,” I said. I feared it was true, even though my father hadn’t actually kicked me out and disowned me. “I really don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The magician pointed north. “There’s a small town on the other side of the mountains,” he said. “You could go there and live there, if you wish. You will be safe.”

“I don’t want to be safe,” I said. The magic bubbled within me. “I want to learn magic.”

“I see.” Bernard De Born met my eyes. “What happened?”

I hesitated, unsure what - if anything - I should say. I knew what he was asking. He wanted to know how I had discovered I had magic, why my family might have disowned me. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I feared I had no choice. Lying wasn’t an option. I had the feeling the magician would spot a lie as quickly as my father. And if I lied to him …

“There was a young man,” I said, finally. My heart twisted. I would have been happy with David, if things had been different. “We went walking out together. He … he tried to kiss me and I panicked and my magic sparked … and I hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt him and yet … since then, I’ve been practising, but … I want to learn how to use magic. My magic.”

“You’ve been practising,” Bernard De Born said. “What can you do?”

I hesitated again. No one had caught me practising magic in the village. If they had … I would be lucky if they had only beat me halfway to death and thrown whatever was left of me out to die. Father would have had no choice but to kick me out – or worse. I would have sooner undressed in front of an audience, than performed magic in front of a stranger. And yet … I had to prove I was worth taking on as a student and apprentice. I held out my hand, cupping my palm, and concentrated. A flame appeared, dancing above my skin without ever quite touching it, and grew rapidly. Bernard looked impressed, just for a second. I hoped that was a good sign.

“Crude,” he said. “But effective.”

I nodded, the flames flickering and dying as I lost my grip on the power. My legs wobbled unsteadily as the last of the flames vanished, a grim reminder that pushing myself too far was dangerous. I had discovered the hard way that trying to experiment too much was asking for trouble. I had been very lucky not to faint in the forest, so far from the village that it was unlikely anyone would find me before I died of exposure. Or worse. If they realised what had been doing …

“You have potential,” Bernard De Born said. “Come with me.”