Wait, You Call Your Parents About Magic?

Chapter 2: The Current

I woke before dawn because the walls were humming.

I sat up and listened. The sound came through the floorboards, steady as a heartbeat. My compass had slid off the windowsill. It lay on the rug, needle angled toward the corridor.

I followed the vibration downstairs, barefoot and still wearing my sleep shirt. It led me to the old greenhouse, where rain streaked the glass roof and empty pots lined the benches. A copper pipe ran along one wall. It shivered beneath my fingertips.

The current pulled through the pipe and down toward the town.

"Stop touching that."

I snatched my hand away. A student stood in the doorway, tall and broad-shouldered, with a red scarf looped twice around his neck. He held a mug in one hand and a folded map in the other.

"Sorry," I said.

"You'll want to be careful with the feeder line. It runs under the whole west wing."

"I didn't know it was a feeder line."

"Most first-years don't." He came closer, keeping a few feet between us. "I'm Caleb. Third-year."

"Riley."

"I know. Scholarship intake. They put your name on the board."

My stomach tightened. "They did?"

"Just your name. Not the scholarship part." He tipped his mug toward the pipe. "You can feel it?"

"I can feel something."

"That's better than most people."

He said it plainly, without the patronizing warmth I'd expected. I liked him for that. Then he turned the map around. It showed the Institute grounds, the town, and a series of thin blue lines running between them.

"Those are current paths," he said. "The ones we're allowed to study."

"Allowed?"

"Some are private property. Some are unstable. Some are none of our business."

A new rule, I thought. I wondered if Dr. Ward had left it out on purpose.

Caleb drew a line with his finger from the greenhouse to the harbor. "The west feeder is part of the old ward. It stabilizes the bluff."

"Why does it go through town?"

"Because it's easier to carry current along old stone than to make a new path."

"That sounds convenient."

"It is."

We walked to the dining hall together. Caleb explained the schedule, the class buildings, and which doors stuck when it rained. He didn't explain the blue lines. When I asked again, he said the Institute had always used what the town provided, and the town had always been protected in return.

"Protected from what?"

He shrugged. "Storms. Landslides. Whatever the ward catches."

In the dining hall, Dr. Ward sat at a corner table with a plate of toast and a stack of papers. She waved me over. Caleb went to join his friends.

"Did you feel the feeder line?" she asked.

"I thought it was pulling energy from the town."

"Everything connected to a current draws something. The question is whether it draws more than the system can bear."

"Can the people in town feel it?"

"Some can. Some notice headaches, exhaustion, a run of bad luck. Most don't connect it to us."

I set down my tray. "Is that consent?"

"No."

"Then why is it there?"

She took a bite of toast and chewed before answering. "Because the ward has been in place for generations. Because it prevents real harm. Because changing it without understanding the structure could injure people."

"Those sound like reasons to study it. Not to keep using it."

Her gaze settled on me. "Good. Keep asking that question."

The morning lessons were introductions to focus, balance, and controlled release. I learned that the current didn't behave like electricity, though it could travel through metal. It responded to attention, pressure, and the shape of a boundary. Every practice ended with a small stone moved no more than an inch.

By noon, my hands shook from concentration.

Dr. Ward gave me a bowl of water and asked me to lift a single ripple. I watched the surface. I pictured the pulse beneath it, gentle and contained.

The water rose in a narrow ridge.

Then the bowl cracked.

I flinched. The water slapped the table and splashed my sleeves.

"Too much," I said.

"Too much for the bowl," she corrected. "Not for you."

I was embarrassed enough to laugh. Dr. Ward handed me a cloth.

"Your attention is strong," she said. "Strength is not the same as control."

"What happens if I push the current too hard?"

"You may injure yourself. Or someone else."

The second rule returned to me, cold and clear. "And if the current is already hurting someone?"

"Then you find out who, and why. You don't swing at the dark."

That night, I went back to my room and called my father. He answered on the first ring.

"Did you leave because of the ward?" I asked.

A long silence.

"Riley," he said, "don't make yourself responsible for fixing a place you've only been in for one day."

"That's not an answer."

"No. It isn't."

"Will you tell me?"

"When you're ready to hear it."

I looked at the brass compass on my desk. The needle still pointed toward the sea, but now I could feel the pull beneath it.

"I'm ready," I said.

"Then wait until I can come to you."

He ended the call before I could ask when.