…..CHAPTER 4…..
Guenevere straightened her dress shirt, checked the belt at her waist, and gave her dark hair a last check in the mirror. For the fifth time.
“Come on, already!” Steven growled from outside her new apartment. Like every apartment, it was very small, a bedroom at the back of the space, a tiny kitchenette along the front wall, the bathroom next to it, and the living area with a small settee and chair, a table next to the kitchen just big enough for two to eat at.
Square footage—three hundred-fifty.
She’d only been here a day, and already she was on duty. Granted, it was just to meet her Handler, fill out paperwork, receive her desk and computer, keys, badge and cuff. Still, she would’ve liked a little time… But she wasn’t to have it, and that was that.
Gwen swallowed hard. She would also receive her permanent witch’s cuff. Well, permanent unless her Handler decided over the next six months that they didn’t suit together—something no witch ever wanted to have happen. It was a silent complaint, a quiet rebuke that could follow a witch all their life, especially if it happened more than once.
“Come on! I don’t have all day. My Handler gets testy when I’m late.”
Gwen hustled to the door, stepping out to crane her head up, staring at her fellow witch with a shy smile. “Sorry,” she whispered.
He shook his head and led the way down the hall to the elevator. Other witches were coming from their rooms, closing their doors behind them. No locks. They weren’t allowed them. But there wasn’t a witch she knew that would violate another witch’s home. Not for anything but an emergency.
Centered on each door she passed hung a bracket with a slide-in brass plaque with the name of the witch engraved on it. She glanced at their names, trying to remember them. Cynthia. Vallory. Harold. Graham. Isla. Thomas. Penelope. She wondered how long it would take for her own name plate to appear. And she wondered if they would use her full name or nickname. Since witches lost their surname, most chose to keep their full name, but she’d chosen her nickname from the moment she knew she was allowed to choose.
Sarah and Oliver, on the left just before the elevator. Melinda and Andrew on the right.
Plenty of these names had derivatives. But she had yet to see a nickname, and her heart fell.
Lifting her chin, she sucked it up. It was the way it was. She’d live.
The elevator opened and they got in, Steven pressing the 4 key. When they got out, she tagged along behind him through the ubiquitous cube farm, heard laughing somewhere, heard a lot of computer keys clacking. Once she saw a witch holding up a cup and warming it for what was likely her Handler, passed it back, received a smile from the young man with a nod of thanks.
Gwen scrubbed her palms down her slacks, wishing today was already over.
So many witches! Oh my. So many, she breathed to herself. They seemed so…casual. She glanced down at her regulation black slacks and white button-up. Gwen looked around again. Black slacks here and there, but mostly denim. And not one white dress-shirt. Huh. Maybe she could… No. She was new, she was expected to look the part of a young witch on her first assignment. Maybe her only. Plenty of witches lived their whole lives with their first and only Handler.
Hopefully she’d like her Handler. She’d been hustled out of the Michigan training grounds just hours after her Handler picked her from the federal graduate pool. And many witches were adopted. She hoped someone would want her enough to adopt her.
She grimaced. It was such a nice sounding word, but…
No. She was grateful. Gwen sternly arranged her emotions. Born a crack-baby, straight into the state foster system, and at nine dropped into Michigan’s witch training, she was lucky to be both alive, and have a good job. The Registry made witches available to the public after graduation. But the federal government got first dibs on those witches with lots of power, so her teachers had marked her for the federal pool.
Her Handler had picked her fast. She supposed that was a compliment, but it still made her edgy, mostly because she didn’t know who she was now linked to. Who now controlled her life.
“In here,” Steven said sourly.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, slid around the door frame and into a conference room. He closed the door with an aggrieved thump, leaving her with a young woman holding a clipboard, her witch cuff visible.
“Guenevere?”
She nodded, almost corrected her, but snapped her mouth shut.
The woman hesitated. “Yes?”
Gwen swallowed. “Gwen, please.”
Her brows rose, but she nodded. “Hmm, I’m not the only one. Gwen it is. I have some paperwork for you to fill out. Once you’re done with that, I’ll take you to the medical floor for your physical. After that we’ll come back here.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
The woman stared at her. “What?”
Gwen swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She looked amused, but handed over the clipboard. “I’ll be in my cubicle just outside the room and down to the right a bit.
Gwen nodded quickly. When she was alone, she filled out the papers, mostly her vital statistics, her history, information on her native element and preferred Aspect. Water and Transformation…or Water. She still wasn’t sure which she really preferred. Her level. 9.
It didn’t take as long as she expected. I suppose they really don’t need much. They’ll have my academy files.
She followed directions to the woman’s cubicle, found her with an older woman who turned to her with a raking look.
Gwen shriveled under that stare.
“Honestly, Lottie,” the young witch said. “She’s new, be nice.”
Gwen goggled at that. A witch telling her Handler… Oh my. Things really were loose around here.
The older woman’s mouth quirked. “New? Barely born, I’d say.”
The younger woman muffled a laugh. “Stop it. Ready, Gwen?”
She nodded and followed.
“Don’t mind Lottie. She’s gruff, but she’s a marshmallow.”
Gwen smiled uncertainly. “What’s your name?”
She looked startled, then chuckled. “Sorry. I always forget that. I’m Val.”
Vallory. Gwen nodded agreeably, but her heart sighed. Nope. Her name plate would say her full name.
“Goddammit!” someone nearby shouted, and then a pile of papers slide neatly, almost gracefully—like a fanned deck of cards—from behind a corner they were approaching.
Gwen gasped at the cursing.
Val laughed at the man who appeared around the corner to scrape the pile back into a stack, no sorting needed, it had slid so perfectly. “At least your Lattice kept it neat, Ian.”
The man sighed and stood with his papers. “Yeah, now if it would only work when I want it to work,” he muttered, already hurrying away.
Gwen stared after him, jaw loose.
“Don’t worry about Ian. He’s stronger than he knows. Oliver is working with him on his strength and skills.”
“But… Doesn’t he get in trouble?”
“For what?”
“That cussing,” she said, indignant.
Val stared, then giggled. “Best put away those country-miss ways, Gwen.”
“I’m not from the country.”
“Mmhmmm. Come on.”
Gwen bit her lip and followed. The medical level was the third floor. The exam was basic, no changing clothes, just heart, lungs, ears, nose, and throat. Pulse, blood pressure, oxygen. They looked at that in particular. “Why?”
The doctor looked up at her in surprise. “The elevation, of course,” she said, as if that explained anything.
Gwen didn’t press. She’d check the Internet. Although once returned to Val’s escort, she decided to chance the other woman’s mood. Most people didn’t like her pester-some questions.
“Why do they need to know how much oxygen I’m getting?”
“Oh, it’s the elevation. You’re not used to the rarity of the air, here. Noticed that you’re more easily winded?”
Gwen opened her mouth to deny, then realized Val was right. Huh.
“We won’t be sending you out on any major assignments for a week or so, and definitely not up into the mountains for at least as long. Thankfully we just had a huge bust. There’s nothing else going on besides the usual routine. Rounds to various witch probations, security at the witch prison, battery checks, energy dumps when the cities witches can’t produce enough. You know.”
Gwen nodded dutifully. It did sound routine, for which she was thankful. Settling in here would be enough to deal with.
Back at the conference room, she sat down where she’d filled out the paperwork, but now the equipment for cuff binding had been laid out. Val hmphed softly. “He must’ve had to go get something.”
“Who?”
Val stuck her head out the door, looking both ways. “Oh there you are. We just got back.”
Gwen waited patiently. When was she going to meet her Handler? After they put her new cuff on, what then? Surely he’d arrive, because he would have to synchronize his own cuff to hers.
Val backed into the room to let a man enter, carrying a tray full of coffee mugs. He passed one to Val, one to her, and kept the third, placing one next to the equipment, set a fifth aside.
He straightened then and stared at her, eyeing her up and down assessingly.
Oh. Ohhhh. He was her Handler.
Val sat down next to her, and Gwen was grateful for her presence. This man intimidated her. She hadn’t expected to find herself with someone like…this. Late twenties, pale blonde hair, blue eyes, average height, but with shoulders like an ox. Somehow she’d always imagined a woman, or perhaps an older man. Not someone…
Not someone she liked to look at.
Gwen bit her lip and looked at the equipment, then down into her coffee.
Val had been talking… “…exam, so all she needs is time. You know the drill. Elevation sickness is easy to prevent, so don’t go pushing her.”
“Oh, for christ’s sake, Val. I know better,” he grumbled, and that did not sound like a Handler to a witch. It sounded like a brother to a sister. “Well? Stand up, let’s take a look at you, girl.”
Gwen obeyed, setting her mug down to stand up as tall as she could. That wasn’t saying much—five foot one ball of Water magic and nerves.
“Hmmm… You’re not as tall as I thought. How old are you again?”
“Seventeen,” she whispered.
“What?”
Gwen cleared her throat. “Seventeen, sir.”
“My name is Jesse Straus, Guenevere. Just call me Jesse. We’re not formal here, so you can relax. I’ve heard the Michigan office can be a little stiff.”
“She likes to go by Gwen,” Val said.
Jesse shrugged. “It’s your name. Whichever you want.”
Gwen relaxed a little.
A knock barely announced the arrival of someone else as the door swung open to reveal two more men. The first in was a tall man in his thirties, pale brown skin and warm eyes, followed by a man in his mid-twenties, average height, tanned gold, with light brown hair, serious green eyes, and a stubborn mouth.
Jesse glanced at them, then waved at her. “Oscar, Oliver, this is Gwen. Guenevere, this is Director Oscar Dale and his Witch Oliver.”
Gwen sucked in a sharp breath, felt every drop of blood drain from her face.
The Director of the Bureau? She wanted to melt…
The two men moved with the ease of men of action, an awareness of each other as they nearly mirrored their movements. It appealed to her, the way they moved, taking seats next to each other across from her.
Both men did the same assessing look Jesse had, and she wondered what she’d done wrong already.
Jesse saw her face and motioned her to sit. “It’s alright, Gwen. Oscar and Val are here to evaluate you as a level nine Water witch, Oliver is here to adjust the cuffs.”
The younger man looked away, eyes tightening slightly. The Director made a slight motion, quickly halted, as if he wanted to…comfort his witch?
Awwwwww… Gwen almost melted for a new reason.
“Let me verify your information.” Jesse rattled it off from the clipboard, and she nodded with each point, feeling everyone’s eyes on her. She wanted to slink out of the room so bad.
“Alright, let’s step over to the testing chamber,” Jesse said, motioning everyone to follow him. At the end of the hall was a concrete room, empty but for a metal stool in the center. The spare, dim place was exactly the same as every other she’d been in. No reason to decorate it, no reason to leave anything flammable, since Fire witches could easily lose control and burn anything. Water witches often soaked things, Earth witches tore things apart, and Air witches smashed things.
The four of them lined the wall by the door while she timidly took the stool.
It was not Jesse who took the lead, though, it was the Director. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the process, so we’ll test for native magic first. Let’s see a globe.”
Gwen swallowed hard and lifted trembling hands. Wrapping them around a blank sphere between them, she called the water in the air around her.
Gwen blinked at the dinky little thing. “What…” She frowned, sensing. Oh. The area was very arid. She was so used to Juniper, Michigan’s humidity, able to call large amounts of water at will. This was a problem.
Gwen stiffened her resolve and pulled. She was not so stupid as to pull from the people in the room, but in seconds, the air was barren of every molecule of water and her globe looked a little more like what she was used to making. When she looked up at them, both the Director and his witch were smiling in approval.
“Very good. Native Water Element and Aspect confirmed. Let’s try Mirror Aspect.”
Gwen shifted the water into a sheet to reflect the four of them, and they all nodded in approval.
“Transformation.”
She shifted it again into two larger pools with a tiny third in the center. The small sphere she focused on, mind linking to the very molecules. Shifting them, adjusting, and then sealing, Gwen then broke it into four drops of liquid that she floated to each of her audience. They accepted the drop of alcohol onto their hands, each getting a whiff of the altered state.
“Nice job. Mirror, check, Transformation, check,” Val said.
“Time,” the Director said.
Gwen looked at him guiltily. “I’m not very good with that, sir.”
“That’s alright. Very few are, Gwen. Do your best.” His voice was casual, undemanding, just waiting.
He was right. The number of quint-skilled Water witches was nearly as rare as Primes, simply because Time was one giant booger of an Aspect to use…if one had the skill at all.
Drawing a deep breath, she closed her eyes. It was usually a hindrance for a witch to do so, but it was the only way she was able to perform a Time spell.
Time and entropy were closely related, so she could potentially do both right now, but thought better of it. Shifting her hands, she held them palm up, waist high. Every second became an acute discomfort, wrapping around her, then the room and the others. For a moment she felt the power of time, the flow, the way it moved…
Gwen waved at the twin spheres of water, wrapping them up in the sphere her waiting time spell. Setting the time stamp, she united the pair into one globe. And then she unleashed it.
When she opened her eyes, there was only one ball of water. As she watched, it moved forward again, breaking into two once more.
Jesse’s eyes were wide, Val’s, too. The Director was nodding.
Oliver had looked as stoic as he’d been since he walked into the conference room, but now he blew out a breath. “God that’s so weird,” he muttered as he gave a tiny little shudder. “I don’t know who told you that you aren’t very good at Time Aspect, but they lied through their teeth. That was the biggest Time spell I’ve ever seen.”
Gwen smiled, felt her face get very hot.
Director Oscar made a little motion. “And now Entropy, please.”
Val shook her head. “I’m not skilled with that, sir.”
Oscar glanced at Oliver. “Well?”
The young man nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Not sure what they were talking about, she hesitated. He was an Earth witch, right? Had she been wrong? No, she sensed his magic was based in the Earth.
And then she understood. Lattice was the opposite of Entropy. Order versus chaos. He would be able to sense her magic, sensing order become less, with his magic.
The idea of using Earth to test Water boggled her mind, but she set aside her surprise and focused.
Entropy wasn’t hard. But it wasn’t exactly easy, either. It was chaos, but it was not random, despite what most thought. As she scattered every molecule back into the air where she’d collected it from, she let it happen as naturally as she could, letting Entropy work itself, something most people didn’t understand.
“Definitely a Quint like you Oliver. All five Aspects of Water confirmed,” the Director said firmly. “Level?” he asked still looking at his witch.
Oliver nodded. “Level nine confirmed.”
Gwen clasped her hands together. “Thank you, sir.”
“Your control could use a little work, but you’re very strong,” Oliver said, frowning faintly.
Oscar glanced at him, lifting an eyebrow before turning to Val. “Can you practice with Gwen everyday until we’re sure she’s got better control?”
“Of course.”
Oliver straightened away from the wall. “Gwen, what’s your best Aspect?”
“Transformation, sir. And Water, obviously.”
“Is there one you’re instinctively better at, or drawn to?”
She considered. Water itself and Transformation always vied for her attention, when she used her magic. “I don’t know.”
“Close your eyes. Let your mind rest on the magic around you. Meditation while touching the magic.”
She obeyed, slipping easily into meditation. No one had ever told her to seek her magic while meditating itself. It was always done for centering and control, not used during magic practice, because practice was an action. But she knew immediately what he was getting at and wondered she hadn’t thought of it herself.
And right away, Water called to her. She liked working with water to Transform, but Water itself was the foundation of her work.
“Water, sir.”
“Very good. And just call me Oliver.”
“Yes, s…Oliver.”
They returned to the conference room. Oliver went to the table where the cuffing kit waited. He motioned to her to sit next to him, while he sat too, and swiveled the chair to face her. “I’m an Earth witch, which you no doubt figured out. I’ll be placing and sealing your cuff, and engraving your information on both yours and Jesse’s cuffs. I’ve got all the pertinent information now. Ready?”
She nodded nervously. When he held out his hand, she put her non-dominant hand into his. His other hand lifted to touch her training band, a wider, less thick bracelet that carried only basic information.
She watched, curious but trembling.
She saw in shock that his hand was shaking, too. Looking up at him, she saw that he was focused on the metal around her wrist. It was solid and fine one second, then like a zipper, it unzipped, and he bent it with ease, removing it from her wrist. For the first time since she was nine, she saw her wrist—this pale, bare patch of flesh—without metal around it.
Oliver turned to the table, stared down at an open container of metal flakes, free hand making a tiny come-hither motion. Those flakes lifted into the air, swirling into a thicker and thicker mass, attenuating into a flat, bar-like piece when he held his hand open, fingers spread, palm facing those ever-condensing flakes. He contemplated it, then nodded in satisfaction before turning to wrap the inch wide, eighth-inch thick steel around her wrist, sealing it in place without a hint of heat.
“Wow,” she whispered. “Lattice?”
Oliver nodded absently, still working. The band tightened on her wrist a little more, but it was still loose enough to slide a finger under it. She could feel the metal harden, felt the magic, the raw power radiating from Oliver…
Oliver turned to the table, grabbed a computer chip looking thing that wasn’t, but was a computer itself. He turned her wrist over, palm up, and pressed it to the metal where it sank into the depths of the steel as if it were water. His finger double checked it hadn’t sank through to hurt her skin beneath, then he let her go long enough to hold his hands in an encircling position around the band. His hands gleamed green light, his magic roaring in her ears and she winced as the bracelet solidified, and she could almost feel the moment it became active.
It wasn’t magic that activated it. It was a certain pressure.
Oliver took her hand again, palm down now as he consulted the paperwork, and began to engrave with the tip of his finger, her information.
When he was done, he let her go and smiled sadly. “Welcome to the Federal Bureau of Witchcraft and Registry Headquarters, Witch Gwen.”
She smiled back, just as sad. “Thanks.”
He turned to the table and did similar actions to place a band nearly identical to hers on Jesse’s wrist. The words on his cuff identified her and her registry number, her medical information, her status as a witch, from level, to skills. His computer was tuned to his mental functions, which was aimed at her computer, giving him the ability to discipline her if necessary.
Gwen swallowed hard, hoping he would be a kind Handler. There were so many horror stories of abuses…
When he was done and Jesse had his own cuff, Oliver returned to his chair, rubbing his head. Gwen rose and scurried over to the side of the table next to Val.
Jesse grinned at Oliver. “Headache? And what, per chance, could be the cause of said headache?”
Oscar chuckled. “Let’s call it dehydration.”
“Uh huh.”
Gwen looked back and forth between the men, their good-humored jibes a sign of ease and friendship.
Val leaned over to whisper. “Oscar probably gave Oliver a beer last night to celebrate.”
Her jaw dropped. “Beer? That’s illegal!” she hissed.
“Who’s gonna argue with him? He’s the director. Besides. Oliver’s adopted. Oscar can give permission with supervision, and Oscar knows not to let Oliver have too much. Not that he would. Oliver’s a light weight, likely cause we’re not allowed, so don’t have a tolerance at all.”
Gwen wondered if she’d ever fit in here. They weren’t just informal here in Denver. They were downright, aggressively casual. “What were they celebrating?”
“A combo. We took down the Kiplings yesterday, and it was Oscar’s daughter’s birthday.”
“Why would Oliver celebrate that?”
“Oscar and Oliver are close. They’ve been together for almost nine years.”
Gwen hesitated. “Together?”
“No, nothing inappropriate. Just friends. Almost like brothers. Like I said. Oscar and Tracy adopted Oliver years ago. We here in Denver have the highest adoption rate in the nation.” Val said that with pride. “I’m adopted, too.”
“Adopted,” she whispered, looking back at the two men, watching them as they talked easily with Jesse and between themselves. It wasn’t obvious at first. But watching them talk and joke with Jesse, she saw it again. Oscar and Oliver…mirrored each other. They moved, spoke, thought, along lines that worked in harness, an understanding of each other that spoke of strong bonds.
She realized most wouldn’t see this. Val did, clearly. But that was because she, too, was Water based.
And one of the Aspects of Water, was Mirror.
Gwen looked at Jesse.
Not for the first time, she prayed that she would have a relationship like that.
She could only hope that her Handler—this stranger she was now bound to—would be a good one.