14. What Tomorrow May Bring-1
1675 Words
14
What Tomorrow May Bring
That night, after most of the house was asleep, Jacob lay awake in his room, searching the Compendium for information on famous duels. He was too worked up from the day to sleep, and pain still shot through his knee from Dexter’s well-aimed blow. The knee wasn’t too swollen, just stiff and sore. Jacob wanted to ice it, but getting ice might mean running into Molly, and he was sure she would want to know exactly what he had done.
Jacob sighed and lay back on his pillow. A book dug into his spine. He pulled Lingua Veneficium out from under himself and stared at the spell book for a moment. Surely there must be an ice-making spell in it somewhere. The professor had warned him not to try new spells alone, and the stupid fox incident had gone badly. But if he did one, tiny spell, no one would ever need to know. He glanced around the room, half expecting Professor Eames to jump out of a shadow wagging one of his wrinkly fingers.
He flipped through the book until he came across an entry: To Freeze―Strigo motus. Aim the talisman at the desired target and voice spell.
That was easier than any of the other spells Jacob had tried with Professor Eames.
Jacob read the words out loud a few times to make sure he had the pronunciation right, then picked up his wand and aimed at his hurt knee. “Strigo motus.” His knee shimmered for a moment. Jacob sighed as the pain vanished.
He went to stand up to put his books away, but when he put his legs over the side of the bed, his right leg stayed straight as a board. Jacob tried to bend it, but it wouldn’t move. He touched his knee but couldn’t feel anything. His knee didn’t feel cold. It didn’t feel at all. Jacob cursed.
He tried again to bend his knee, but it had frozen in place. He flipped Lingua Veneficium back to the Freeze spell. There was no counter spell written next to it. Or cross reference. Or alternate translation.
Jacob cursed again. He didn’t want to risk piling another spell on top of this one, and he might need to be able to bend his knee again at some point in his life. He needed help.
There was no way he could go to Iz. She would want to know why he was hurt. The professor would be angry Jacob had tried the spell. Molly would worry. He would rather cut his leg off than ask Dexter for help. He was sure Emilia could fix it, but she would ask too many questions. And he didn’t want to tell her about what had happened with the sparring. Connor and Claire he didn’t trust with the safety of his leg.
The only one left was Samuel. Samuel didn’t seem like the type who would ask too many questions.
Jacob pushed himself off the bed and wobbled out of the room to find Samuel, dragging his useless leg behind him. He managed all right until he got to the stairs and almost fell a few times trying to move quietly in the dark. But eventually, he made it to the ground floor by sitting on his butt and scooting along one stair at a time, pausing every few seconds to check that no one was coming. The thought of being found like that was too humiliating to contemplate.
Samuel lived right off the kitchen in a small stable that used to house animals. It had been renovated so he could have a door that opened to the gardens instead of a hallway.
When Jacob arrived at the stable, he found Samuel sitting outside in a rocking chair, gazing at the stars. Samuel didn’t seem to notice Jacob’s ungainly approach.
“Um, Samuel?” Jacob said as he reached the rocking chair. “Do you have a minute?”
Samuel blinked and turned toward Jacob. “Sure. What do you need?”
How could he ask for help without mentioning how he had gotten hurt? Was there another logical explanation for freezing his own leg? “Well, it’s nothing really. I…ah, well, I didn’t know who else to go to, and I really, really don’t want anyone else to know.”
Samuel leaned forward, frowning. “Right.”
“So, I was hoping maybe you could help me but not tell anyone,” Jacob said. “Especially not Aunt Iz or Emilia.”
“All right. I’ll do what I can to help, and I won’t tell. Unless it’s something Isadora really needs to know.”
Jacob stood silent for a moment. Was this the sort of thing Aunt Iz would really need to know? But Jacob couldn’t see another solution to his problem. “I froze my knee,” he mumbled. Jacob braced himself for Samuel to yell at him. But instead, Samuel laughed.
“Is that all?” He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have to admit, from the way you were talking. Whew!”
“What did you think I meant?” Jacob asked.
“Nothing, it’s just, with the way kids are these days…” Samuel raised his eyebrows. “Knees, I can fix.” He pulled up another chair. “Sit, let me see.”
Jacob sat with his right leg sticking straight out in front of him and pulled up his pant leg.
Samuel examined Jacob’s knee. “What spell did you use?”
“Strigo motus.”
“Right. Easy fix.” Standing, Samuel grabbed his staff, placed one end on the ground, and said, “Cantus relovare.”
Painful sensation flooded back into Jacob’s knee. A thousand hot needles pricked his leg, all searching for the spot that would hurt him the worst. Jacob breathed in through his teeth.
“It’ll hurt for a bit, but there’ll be no lasting damage. You should sit still till the pain stops. It’ll be a few minutes.” Samuel sat back down.
“Thanks,” Jacob said through gritted teeth.
“Mind telling me why you decided to try a spell on yourself?”
“I thought it would be like icing it,” Jacob answered. “My knee was bothering me.”
“From your little bout with Dexter?”
“How did you know?” Jacob asked.
“Connor told me. And don’t be angry with him for doing it. He wanted to know if he should tell Isadora or the professor about it. Connor was worried about you. He’s a good kid.”
“What did you tell him?” Jacob asked.
“That what’s between you and Dexter should stay that way. Connor was right to stop Dexter this morning. But I have known Dexter Wayland for some time, and whatever you did to make him angry, it’s best you two sort it out on your own.” Samuel looked at Jacob. “Unless, of course, you want help?”
“No.” Jacob shook his head. “I want to deal with him on my own.”
“That’s what I thought. Sometimes we have to fight for what we want. And if you want something enough, the fight will be worth it.”
“Yeah,” Jacob said. Did Samuel know more than he let on about why he and Dexter were really fighting? It sounded like Samuel wanted Jacob to win. He knew he had always liked Samuel for a reason.
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Why are you still awake?” Jacob asked. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he added quickly.
“We all have fights ahead of us. Some are coming sooner than you’d think. And sometimes you need to decide what you’re willing to give to win before you go into a fight.”
“You’re talking about the Dragons, aren’t you?” Jacob asked, already sure of the answer.
Samuel nodded.
“Is it getting that bad?”
“Isadora and Professor Eames don’t want to worry all of you. But yes, it is getting that bad. And the word is, tomorrow it’ll get worse.”
“If the rebels are so set on humans finding out about wizards, why don’t they just tell them?” Jacob massaged the blood back into his knee.
Samuel didn’t answer right away. He stared up at the stars, as though waiting for them to answer for him.
“It’s easy, really. Let’s say a month ago I met you on the street and told you I was a wizard,” Samuel said. “You would have thought I was crazy. Suppose I tried to prove it by showing you my powers. You would have said it was an optical illusion or some new technology. So instead I go to a news station or a government official and make a public announcement. The government would assume I was seeking publicity, or I was insane and possibly dangerous, in which case I would be imprisoned and have to go through the trouble of escaping and going on some wanted list.”
Samuel shook his head, tracing shapes in the dirt with his staff. Jacob wished he knew what or who crept through Samuel’s thoughts. A breeze flowed from the base of Samuel’s staff, scattering the dust of the drawings away.
“The only way to convince the general population of the existence of magic is by a show of force involving so many wizards the truth would become undeniable,” Samuel said. “But a demonstration of that size is a very hard thing to organize without the Council or MAGI noticing. Whatever the rebels are planning must be big. The only way to gain from a public display like that is to scare humans into submission.
“We can only assume it will be grisly enough to scare the general population into allowing Magickind some form of power. People won’t automatically assume wizards are behind the attack. They’re more likely to jump to militarized terrorists of the human variety, or, in some places, the work of the devil. But they won’t be able to deny something is happening. That a new kind of power is rising. Terrifying thought, isn’t it?”
“What sort of thing would the Dragons do to scare people?” Jacob asked.
“Don’t know. But the Dragons have let the word spread they’re planning something big. We don’t know what, but they want us to be watching when it happens. So we wait for what tomorrow may bring.”
“Then what?”
“The fight begins. Never be afraid to fight for what you believe in, Jacob. Or for what you love.” Samuel stood up. “Your leg should be better by now. Best to get some sleep.”
“Goodnight,” Jacob said as Samuel closed his door.
- Writer
