[Support, Legal]

  Sparky came back a little before lunch and he had a woman with him. This is the first time I'd seen Sparky with a woman. Could this be a secret girlfriend, a new girlfriend, a long lost girlfriend, an affair with a married woman. I was intensely curious to find out.

  “Apprentices this is Madame Clemence Weber an art teacher for Opal, Rose you may sit in on the lessons if you wish but Madame Weber is here to teach Opal how to sketch. After Our little mishap I thought if Opal could sketch she could more easily and more importantly more quickly escape a bad situation. PLease say hello to her.”

  “Hello Madame Clemence Weber”

  “Hello Madame Clemence Weber”

  “Good afternoon young ladies it’s a pleasure to meet you both, since my mother is named Madame Clemence Weber, I would appreciate it if you both called me Clem. Alright?”

  “Yes Clem.”

  “Yes Clem.”

  “Good, a sketch is a rough drawing of a scene. It’s useful getting the important details down on paper right away, the fine details can then be added later if they are necessary.”

  Clem put an apple down on the desk, asking us to sketch it. Opal was very good and very fast. I was neither, my sketch looked nothing like an apple and it took me three times as long. Clem praised Opal and told me to just use three lines in the next sketch. She placed another apple next to the first. I drew my first two vertical lines and added a third line above the two vertical lines. It looked more like a torii gate than two apples.

  This pattern kept repeating. Clem would put down a common object seconds later Opal would have a perfect sketch. I’d have some lines on the paper. It struck me that nothing alive seemed to have straight lines, always graceful curves. Not that I could draw a straight line either. Straight lines came out like a choppy seascape.

  I was holding back Opal, at least that is what I was telling myself. I’d try a few more then I’d bow out gracefully. The vase I sketched looked like the polar opposite of the sketch placed in front of us. I decided to pay more attention to Opal’s sketches than my own. I was pretty sure I saw a few of them cast a magical glow. I know this is what Sparky hoped would happen but I worried what if Opal somehow got sucked into that vase. The magical glow only lasted a second then faded away. The detailed drawing that had sucked her in that had remained glowing and allowed me to join Opal inside the painting. These sketches might be more dangerous than the detailed drawing that took days to produce.

  Suddenly one of Opal’s sketches started glowing and remained glowing.

  “Sparky, get over here now.”

  Sparky came over and picked up Opal’s sketch of a chair.

  “It’s fine Rose don’t worry, you can’t go inside a chair, the best you could do would be to sit on the chair. As long as you are sketching a real object in front of you there is nothing to worry about. Senior apprentice, you go ahead and continue working with Madame Clemence, I’ll have the junior apprentice go get all of us some lunch.”

  “Yes Sparky”

  “I’m sorry Opal, I didn’t mean to scare you Opal.”

  “It’s alright Rose, I wasn’t scared you were right there with me.”

  “Do you want a sweet bun honey?”

  “Yes, please”

  “Clem, what can I get for you, I’m going to Madd Maggies?”

  “Nothing at all, Rose thanks.”

  I went out to the desk where Sparky resumed his seat.

  “I’m sorry I freaked out, I was afraid it was going to suck her in.”

  “It’s alright Rose, it’s always better to be overly cautious around magic, especially magic you don’t understand. You already know my order but before you go to Maggies, go home and check on Draco. He might be awake and a little disoriented. If he’s up to it, take him to Maggies for tea.”

  “Okay sure Sparky, by the way I found out the bookstore has been reading my thoughts since I got here. It doesn’t tell you what I’m thinking about, does it?”

  “Rose I’m shocked that you’d even think something like that. That would be totally unethical.”

  “I know that’s exactly why I am asking you about it.”

  “No of course not it wouldn’t tell you anyway, it’s a good alignment, by it’s very nature it could never betray a trust.”

  “It’s not lawful good is it? I’ve been thinking a lot about that alignment and I think it might really be evil. If that is true does that mean that lawful evil is actually a good alignment.? No that can’t be right, evil is still evil, lawful, neutral or chaotic. Alright I'm going to check on Draco.”

  ***

  I knocked lightly on Draco’s door before opening it, not wanting to wake him if he was still asleep. I found him rolling on his hoard, like kids roll in the snow.

  “Hello Draco, I was wondering if you’d like to go to the tea house. I'm picking up lunch for everyone, but I usually go for a cup of tea this time of the day. Are you feeling up to it?”

  “Yes, I feel just fine, I’d like to stop at the theater just to make sure the field is still good and steady if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure, that sounds good, I love watching those gnomes, they're just incredible.”

  “Rose before we go I just want to thank you for setting up this room for me. It means the world to me.”

  “Your welcome Draco, it’s the least I could do after what you did for me at the theater. We all really appreciate it. If you have any favorite plays I’ll suggest them to McCracken, he is the director. He lives here in the tower as well. As a matter of fact let’s go down to the library and I’ll introduce you to our librarian and our ghost.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  We walked down to the library.

  “Draco, this is Doug, he’s our librarian and his girlfriend Daisy is here as well.”

  “Hello Doug, we’ll have to talk about books. It’s very nice to meet you Daisy, oh yes I can see and hear you no problem at all, can’t everyone else. Oh I see, well now there are two of us who can see you.”

  Draco walked today instead of floating. I was just glad that he was up and moving at all. We didn’t generate as much interest as yesterday with a fey girl on a floating dragon. But no one was bored seeing a miniature dragon walking or floating. Dogberry waved us through the gate then bowed low to Draco. Draco waved his tail back at him.

  “Are you all right walking all this way, we can stop at the shop and get a portal muffin if you’d like to.”

  “No Rose, I'm fine. Yesterday was the first time in a long time that I completely drained my magical energy reserve. But it’s already more than half filled up again. This town has so much magical power just floating in the air. It’s remarkable. I could float no problem but I only did that for Opal, I quite enjoy walking.”

  “Well she loved every minute of it. I like walking too, I get a lot of good ideas for stories when I’m out walking. I just don’t seem to remember them all. Everyone says take paper and pencil on your walk, but like the ideas I always seem to forget that too.”

  We finished the walk in companionable silence. Soon we were standing in front of the theater. I knocked, waited a beat then opened the door. I felt the tingle of the magical field as I passed into it.

  “Draco, is there a spell that creates the magical field?”

  “No Rose, not for me. I go to the center of the spot where I want the magical field to be and just create it right in my head. I just think of the field floating in front of my third eye. Close your eyes, now think about the eye you have on your forehead just above and between your eyes. Can you feel it?”

  “Yes I think I can feel it.”

  “I close my eyes. Then I take a little bit of my magic, and I imagine it is a perfect sphere sitting right in front of my third eye. Once it’s sitting there I start to pump magic into it. By that I mean I imagine that my magic is flowing out of my body into the sphere I’d already created. Then it’s a matter of how big a field of magic you are attempting to create. It doesn’t have to be done all at once. You can always come back and expand or shrink a magical field. If this theater was twice as big as it is. I would have paused much sooner after it was about half the size of the current theater, then I’d come back three more times and the field would then be twice as big and I wouldn’t pass out and sleep for eighteen hours. I knew this size was just about the limit of my magic.Anyways you can’t create a magical field here because it already has one. You can practice in the street, create a tiny one then unmake it and suck the magic back inside you.”

  “I just learned to feel the fields not that long ago so I don’t think I’ll be creating one anytime soon.”

  “Rose you have a vivid imagination, I have no doubt you could walk out in the street and create a field right now. Come on, let's try, you’ve got nothing to lose. This field is fine, it’s strong and stable, I just wanted to check, because my magic was running low at the end yesterday. Do you want to try it?”

  “Sure why not.”

  “Rose, should we ask Sparky first?”

  “No, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

  Draco laughed. “Alright then give it a try.”

  We went out into the deserted street. I closed my eyes and felt the spot on my forehead. I tried to imagine a tiny stream of magic streaming out of my forehead to a spot about three inches from my face.

  “That’s it Rose, it’s starting to form a sphere, just a little more, a tiny bit more. That's it, you can stop the flow, now. Rose open your eyes, NOW. That's a perfect football sized sphere.”

  “I feel kind of weak.”

  “Rose, That’s because you didn’t stop the flow fast enough. If you can’t stop the flow internally, opening your eyes always does the trick. I think opening your eyes slams the third eye shut, stopping any flow. Now let’s try and get that magic back into you, and that should stop any weakness you might feel. Close your eyes again this time reach out with your imagination and grab hold of that field, imagination poking a tiny hole in the magical balloon floating in front of you, you should feel magic flowing in the reverse of when you created it. The field is shrinking, Rose. Can you feel the power flowing back into you?“

  “Yes I don’t feel quite so weak.”

  “You won’t be able to recover it all, some just gets lost, but it should take away the weakness. There you go, now just imagine the sphere pops, that will uncreate it and there will be no sign that it was ever here. How do you feel?”

  “Umm, tired like I ran a long way.”

  “Well just rest at the bakery for a bit, sugar will help, a couple of those sweet buns should pump some energy back into you.”

  “I can’t believe you did that entire theater and I just did a one meter ball and I feel this tired it’s amazing.”

  “I’ve been doing this for a long, long time. This was your first time. I think you did amazing.”

  We walked back to Maggies, Ruby found us a table right away.

  “Rose are you alright you look exhausted, didn’t you get any sleep last night?”

  “I was just practicing some magic and might have overdone it. Could I have a couple of sweet buns and the regular order for Sparky and Opal, please, oh and a jasmine tea, please.”

  “You got it Rose, Draco, what can I get you?”

  “I’d like to try a Jasmine tea please.”

  I felt a little better after eating the sweetbuns and drinking my tea. We walked slowly back to the book store.

  “Rose what did you do?”

  “I’m sorry Sparky, don’t blame Draco, he said we should ask you first.”

  “She created a magical field about a meter in diameter, Sparky.” said Draco.

  “Rose you go home and get some rest, take tomorrow off. Draco, how are you feeling?”

  “Good I’m about half full of magic already, I’ll walk her home Sparky I’m sorry I should have checked with you first.”

  “It’s fine, the first time is always the hardest, thanks for looking out for her.”

  I went home and to bed and woke up twenty four hours later.