Apprentices: First Quarter

Mentoring 101

“Try again,” my mentor tells me for about a hundredth time, and I let out a long, frustrated breath. Seriously? Okay, yes, I’m overreacting, because this is only my tenth attempt, or something like that. But it’s not working. I’ll never be able to do this damn spell.

“It doesn’t click in my head. I’m only overstraining myself,” I grunt, feeling the vein on my forehead already popping out from the exertion. Kir shakes his head, but he doesn’t seem angry or disappointed with me. If anything, he looks like my grumpiness amuses him.

“Do you want to hear a secret?” he asks, making me forget about my venting in a nanosecond. I lean my elbows on the desk in expectation, cupping my chin with my hands. He chuckles at my reaction.

“You have my full attention,” I assure him, smiling back. I can’t believe how he knows that telling me a secret is just the way to cheer me up. He leans forward, his face growing a bit more serious, like he’s about to say something really important.

“Good. The secret is about magic. I know how you keep hearing that you’ll lose your powers for some time if you overstrain yourself. But in reality, working magic is like working muscles. The more you practice, the more you push towards your limits, the stronger you get,” he reveals, making me raise my eyebrows in surprise.

“Okay. I was expecting this secret to be related to the ongoing investigation of the Cincinnati den, but fine. This is something I didn’t know, too,” I slowly respond. In the next moment, he bursts into laughter, making my face fall.

“You’re unbelievable. You’re an apprentice, you can’t know details about an ongoing investigation of warrior witches,” he says mid-laughter, making me shrug. Suddenly, he grows serious. “You tried to sneak out with them today, didn’t you?” he wants to know.

I’m so surprised that he even thought of that possibility, that’s why I can’t hide my primal reaction to his question. My mouth does this strange movement that screams how guilty I am. I pull myself together just a moment too late, shaking my head. “Of course not. I’m offended that you even thought of something like that,” I tell him, managing to sound completely honest.

But Kir sends me a pointed look, not believing a word that’s coming out of my mouth. “You keep telling yourself that. You can’t lie to me,” he remarks, his lips pulling up into a satisfied smile. “Who caught you? Was it one of the teachers?” he asks, making my face darken.

“No. It was Marcus,” I mutter under my breath, suddenly remembering that I should be angry at my friend. But strangely enough, I’m not. That’s a new thing. Kir finds this so funny, that he even claps his hand against his knee. Yeah, let’s all laugh at Evelyn because she can’t even sneak out of school anymore.

“Well, if it consoles you, it’s better you were busted by him, than a teacher,” he remarks. I raise my eyebrows, already knowing what to say in return.

“Or busted by you. You wouldn’t let me hear the end of this, would you?” I wonder, making him send me a mischievous smile. In the next moment, he shrugs.

“We’ll never know,” he tells me in a mysterious way, making me let out a long breath. “Now, try again,” he adds in a more demanding tone, making me slump my shoulders in defeat. And here I was, thinking he would let me off the hook for once.

After a while, I finally show some of my powers, but it’s not even close to what I’m used to. Okay, we’re only starting to learn some beneficial spells in our subjects, this is why the feeling is a little strange. We usually just perform aggressive and defensive spells. Beneficial spells are next level s**t.

Once Kir tells me that we’re finished with the lesson, I keep sitting there, staring at him. I’m unsure whether I should even open my mouth to say what’s on my mind or not. But the moment my mentor sees me hesitating, he knows something’s up.

“Yes?” he simply asks, staring at me in expectation. I already start shaking my head, meaning to tell him that he can just forget it. But something keeps me glued to that armchair, because I’m still sitting there. Finally, I gather the courage and take a deep breath before speaking.

“I want to tell the truth to my friends. About blood magic. Before you say anything, I know it’s risky. But I can’t keep lying to them, I’m not that kind of person. And they keep asking me about the spell I used on France. Especially Katie. She knows something’s up …” I trail off, carefully observing the look on his face.

He doesn’t say anything for a while. He just stares at me with a neutral expression, making me fear that he’s going to jump across the desk and strangle me. Any moment now. He’ll just lunge and me and bye Evelyn. Or not.

“So? How stupid is my idea?” I ask, unable to keep quiet anymore. He’s making me nervous and not many people can say that they made me nervous. Suddenly, he pulls his lips into a small smile.

“I don’t think it’s stupid, because you were smart enough to come to me with it,” he finally replies, making me raise my eyebrows in surprise. Okay, what? “It’s only been a month. But I get it. Things like that only get harder to keep with time,” he then adds a bit more seriously.

I stare at him blankly. “Okay, so what should I do?” I ask, tilting my head curiously. I really want to know what he thinks, not just hear him say things that I want to hear. I want the hard truth. Kir sighs, shaking his head.

“I can’t tell you that. I don’t know your friends the way you do. If you think they’re trustworthy enough and that it’ll help you cope with your powers, you can tell them. But there’s always risk. You could stop being friends or they could slip up by accident,” he keeps turning in circles. Fine, I get it. He doesn’t want to influence my decision. But isn’t that why he wanted me to come to him first, before making any important choices?

“Kir. I thought you wanted me to come to you before making such decisions, so I can hear what you have to say about it. You’re not telling me anything about what you think,” I grunt, starting to get a little annoyed with him.

My mentor smiles, shaking his head. “I didn’t want you to come to me with such things, so I could voice my opinion. I wanted you to come to me, so I could help you guide in the right direction. So you could make a decision by knowing and accepting all the risks that come with it. Or be able to walk away from something not meant to happen,” he finally explains, making my face fall. Oh. That makes a lot more sense now.

“Basically, you’re playing my fairy godmother,” I remark before I’m able to stop myself. Kir stares at me in surprise for a short moment, then bursts into laughter.

While he’s busy laughing, I feel my cheeks heating up. I didn’t just tell him that. I can be so embarrassing sometimes. If only I could stop my tongue in moments like these.

Once Kir finally stops cracking up, I turn to him with a questioning gaze again. “So, what should I do? Do I tell them the truth or not?” I ask, practically begging him to give me a straight answer. But it doesn’t work.

“Do whatever seems right to you,” he simply says in response.

As I’m walking to my room later, I’m more than exhausted. I barely managed to show a sign of magic today. It was a really difficult spell, I don’t know why Kir made me do it. I was supposed to heal a wound on my own skin first, then tried to heal a wound on my mentor’s skin.

I barely managed to perform it on myself, but on Kir? It was nearly impossible. I don’t know why he made me do it, I wasn’t anywhere close to ready. Maybe he was testing me? Who knows what’s going on through his head. Anyway, I’m done with magic for the night. It’s time for me to relax a little. Well, how relaxing is it to tell your friends that you’ve been lying to them for a whole month?

I take a deep breath as I open my wardrobe, staring into it for a few minutes before closing it, and just heading to Jake’s room the way I’m dressed. I know it’s Halloween, but I’m not in the mood to play a role. I’m just Evelyn tonight. I can’t pretend.

As I’m walking through the dorms, I text Katie to unlock the door, because I’m on my way. She peeks out just as I’m a few steps away from the room. She smiles at me, while I furrow my eyebrows. She’s wearing a damn tutu, and her hair is made into a tight bun. Her face has a black mask drawn around her eyes, making me realize what she’s representing soon enough.

“Good evening black swan,” I greet her, making her grin grow even wider. I can hear music blasting from inside, but I don’t even care if we’re catching attention or not. My best friend suddenly frowns as she realizes I’m not wearing a costume.

“What are you supposed to be representing?” she asks, making me smirk at her.

“A witch,” I reply, having way too much fun with this. She stares at me for a moment, then rolls her eyes and lets me in.