“You and Dylan Galloway are really a thing?” Maggie asked in a quiet voice.
“We’re not a thing,” Aiden squeaked. Even if he had, very briefly and very hypothetically, wished they were. “We’re friends.”
“That’s what I meant. I wasn’t implying you were a couple.” She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. Today she was wearing a bright pink cardigan with a matching headband. Maggie recovered and leaned close again. “Still, I didn’t think it was possible to be friends with Dylan. Aren’t you afraid of him?”
“No.” He frowned. “Haven’t you, like, gone to school with him for years?”
“We were in the same class for first and fifth grade.”
“So you’ve known him for that long and you’re still afraid of him?”
“Well, he wasn’t so bad in first grade. Quiet, although he did get into fights with the older kids on the playground. And there were always whispers, because you know…”
“Of what he is.” That pang of sorrow for his friend again.
Maggie nodded. “By fifth grade, everyone knew to avoid him. Even the meanest bullies wouldn’t touch him. Wherever he went, he had this, like, bubble around him.”
The bell rang and the teacher stood up to explain the lesson for the day. Aiden kept picturing what he’d done to the candle, afraid he’d do something like that again. On the other hand, yesterday he’d been able to stop a rolling ball. The first real success he’d had in Minor Magical Control. Maybe it was the meditation with Phoebe.
Today they were levitating pencils. Aiden started to let out a sigh, thinking nothing could go wrong with this. Then he imagined accidentally making a pencil fly across the room and stab someone in the eye. Maybe Maggie. Maybe himself.
So much for his confidence.
“You did so good yesterday,” Maggie said with her usual smile. “I’m sure you’ll be almost as good as me before long. Now, I’ll demonstrate, and then you try.”
The teacher had lined up pencils on his desk. Unsharpened, Aiden noticed with some relief.
Maggie used her magic to pick one up and float it slowly and carefully to their shared desk. “There. Just as easy as that.”
“You’re so good at this stuff—why are you in this class? Shouldn’t you be in the advanced class or something?”
A blush colored her cheeks and she dropped her gaze. “I took the test, but I didn’t score high enough to pass.”
“Why not?” Aiden asked. She made everything look easy and she was so confident.
“I’m missing skills in a few key areas.” She sighed, and some of her bright demeanor came back. “But I can keep practicing and I can take the advanced placement test again at the end of the year.”
“I’m sure you’ll do great.” He looked at the row of pencils. If only he was so confident in his own abilities.
* * *
“Do you think you can’t do it, or are you afraid that you can?” Dylan asked.
Aiden looked out over the gravel pit, thinking about what to say, wondering what the truth was. “A little of both, I guess. I’ve been able to do things that should be impossible. I know I’m a changeling, I know magic is real, but I guess part of me still doesn’t really believe it. And it doesn’t help that everyone is so much better at all this than I am. I always feel stupid in my magic classes.” Although he was thankfully caught up in his regular subjects.
“I guess it would be weird to find out about all this out of the blue.” Dylan stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“And I am afraid. What I did to Conner…”
“God, not that again. I know you feel bad about it, but you apologized and it’s over.”
“I know, but I’m worried that if I let out the full strength of my magic, just let it loose, then it’ll come out at other times when I don’t want it to. Like my magic will think it has permission.” Aiden made a face. That sounded weird.
“Dude, I told you—the opposite is true. It’s a pressure release. Let yourself go wild, and you’ll feel better afterward.”
“Not everyone is like you.”
“Try it. Come on, I’m getting bored.”
Knowing how obnoxious Dylan could get when he was bored, Aiden focused on the wooden pole they’d set up as a target. Aiden still didn’t really know what his magic could do. He’d gotten a few ideas from the things he’d been able to do in class. What he knew for sure was that it didn’t have to be something destructive, like Dylan’s fire. Aiden could try something totally different.
The pole looked a bit like a tree. Could he make it into an actual tree? Or at least make it look like one? The books and information he’d read made a lot of mentions of fae being able to cast glamour spells, making something look different—a handful of leaves and rocks that looked like gold coins until the fae was gone, things like that.
Can I make you into a little tree? He sent his magic toward the pole, picturing the transformation. A small tree, little more than a sapling, with bright green leaves as if it were spring instead of fall. The strange warm feeling started in his chest, and he didn’t fight it, only directed it.
The pole shimmered and a slender little tree appeared in its place.
“I did it!” Aiden jumped.
“Huh. Not what I was expecting, but cool.” Dylan admired the tree. “Is that real, or a glamour?”
“I’m actually not sure.”
Dylan walked up to touch it. He looked back with his eyebrows raised. “It’s real. You’ve seriously got some big-time fae mojo.”
“I turned a pole into a real tree,” Aiden said, mostly to himself. It was terrifying to think he had that much magic, that such a thing was possible. But he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t exciting. “I wonder what else I can do.”
“There you go.” Dylan smiled. “I told you this would be fun.” He flicked a hand and the tree caught on fire.
“Hey!”
“You can make another one.” Dylan walked back to where Aiden was standing.
“You don’t have to burn everything, you know.”
The poor tree’s leaves blackened and curled.
Something crossed Dylan’s face. Uncertainty, maybe even fear. “I know.”