Four

CHIARA

“BUT this is something that you must do. There’s no choice.”

“There’s always a choice!” I protested.

“I hope you really think about it this time.” And… she’s using her adult voice this time. “There’s a man you need to find and bring before the Council. I wish I can do it but I am swamped. If I don’t finish my own assignment, I can’t be with you and your father after your birthday because I’ll have to go straight to my next assignment. There, okay? It’s not a surprise, anyway, that I’m going to be there. But I’m hoping to at least stay for a week after your birthday, darling.”

I rolled my eyes because we both know this is grand manipulation!

But it’s the kind I like.

“I’m in.”

She giggles and shakes her head, looking a little guilty, before she pulls me into her hug.

“Why? What did this man do?” I ask as I recover the wine glass from the table. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He hasn’t done anything… yet.” She frowns. “Why do you always think that when the Council wants a Magickal brought to them, he’s going to get punished?”

“He isn’t? It must be something about his blood, then. He’s an unregistered Magickal?”

“Well, that’s the clincher, really. That’s why we specifically need you for this assignment. He’s a warlock and he has no idea, and he lives a Mundane as much as we know of, who manages to make himself a billionaire therefore he can afford to live outside of the grid.”

I snort. “You’re kidding me. That’s like a made-up story.”

She snorts the exact same way I do. “I wish. But it’s true… or as much as the report says it is. It is impossible that he hasn’t tapped into his magick or he hasn’t felt it because he is powerful. We’ve been having reports of surges of elemental activities where he is located. Could also be the reason why he lives so isolated, is because he’s been trying to manage this alone for a long time and you know magick manifests at fourteen. So he’s been at this too long alone.”

My heart constricts inside my chest at what my mother is saying.

A powerful Warlock, living in the Mundane world alone, without any knowledge about the Magickals.  

And he is isolated here as he is from his roots.

I don’t know how he could have gone this long without going crazy.

Unless he already is?

But Mom says he managed to make himself very wealthy, which means he is unusually smart.

“Do we know him? Does father know him if he’s that wealthy?”

“Hmm... I don’t know if your father knows him but I don’t. On the other hand, I’ve been out of Mundane affairs since ten years ago so unless it has something to do with any of my jobs, I’m clueless. There was a power surge felt in New Orleans last week and a day before yesterday so he’s really waking up. The last thing we want to happen is he loses control over himself and hurts people.”

“If he’s isolating that means that’s the last thing he wants to do,” I say. “Have we gotten any casualty reports in that area?”

“None. I scanned his files and he actually seems to manage to be a pillar of the small community just outside his massive place. But his information is very limited. We need someone like you to go there and find out more. You know how accurate you are about tracking down potentials.”

I sigh. She is right, though I don’t use this gift to track other Magickals in the Mundanes.

I use it to sense potentially special talents manifested by Mundanes, talents that can be developed into remarkable skills.

I find writers and artists who possess raw, passionate talents for the company I work for.

“So, when I get there and I found him and I tell him about us, what’s next?”

“We come and help him control his powers. I shouldn’t be on this assignment, too, but I insisted to be on call or I’ll not convince you about taking it, I told them.” And I see the concern on her beautiful face. “It’s unusual for them to pick you alone for possible contact with this man, Gideon Swan, when there are others who can work with unregistered Magickals who live in the Mundane world as you do. But they say it isn’t them who picked you. That it was the Oracle who did. And it did not explain its reasons.”

My eyebrows flew up my forehead in surprise.

The Oracle isn’t a Magickal but an entity living in a clear, small pool of water supplied by the spring inside a cave.

I’ve never seen it but I’ve read it in books from Magickal libraries my mother has been bringing to me since I was a child.

I was fourteen when she tells me that many of the bedtime storybooks in my youth are true and that I am a Magickal. And there’s no way I can deny that because at fourteen was when I first made an object move just by my mind.

“That’s why I have to handle the delivery of the assignment to you myself. It’s an Oracle directive. That’s why I told you there isn’t a choice. If you don’t want to do it, someone else from the Council will summon you and they will direct you in person to do this.”

“I’m not saying I’m not gonna do it,” I protest.

“But you know this, Chiara. You are well into the age when the Council can require service from you for the Magickals. You know that when I fought for your appeal to live with your father—no, that’s too subjective—but in the Mundane world, it was with the stipulation that you be educated about our culture and most information you need to know about us. The only reason you’re not living with me half of the year when you were growing up was because of that conflict in the North yard ago that took most of my time and you know, on my vacation leaves, I stayed with you and your father because he can’t come to mine.”

“I know… I said I am not complaining.”

“I want you to be fully informed about your responsibility as a registered Magickal, too. There are things we might ask of you from time to time.” My mom is speaking softly. “Though, darling, I really hope none of the Council will need to summon you. I would want to think you will feel an affinity for this poor soul because I can’t imagine how he's doing right now. You are the most expert in the Mundane world. You can truly help him.”

The Council irritates me sometimes, but my mother is right. I cannot ignore the Council if they formally request my aid. They are the Magickal government. If I can follow the mandates of the Mundane government, I can do this, too.

I worry about being placed in a box then covered, and then told to dance to the beat of their music. I always thought being called to serve to the detriment of someone losing family is wrong.

I grew up in that.

It is a view I will never share with my mother. It is a contrast to my choice to respect her decisions.

There’s a part there where I have always felt I am luckier than most to have been living the life I live because of the kind of parents I have.

That I have a better quality of life because I also happen to be both Mundane and Magickal.

I use my magick.

I use it to help the Mundanes. I use it to navigate my life in the Mundane world.

So, honestly, it is hypocritical of me to spurn the other side when magick is beneficial to me and my spot in the Mundane territory.

I guess I haven’t really forgiven the Council for what I feel was their hand in upending the lives of my family by playing on the strong sense of responsibility of a powerful, smart, and conscientious witch.

But it isn’t because I suffered, but my non-Magickal Dad did.