Coming of Mage by Mikel Andrews

Author:Mikel Andrews [Andrews, Mikel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Alchemy, Lake Superior, Magic, Minnesota
ISBN: 9780878399079
Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.
Published: 2013-06-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Tall meadow grass swept against the bare skin below the hem of my shorts. Grasshoppers popped and fluttered among the greens, thudding against me like lazy buckshot. The reverberating thrum of frogs and toads rode the breeze as it circled around me, plucking at my shirt.

I shut my eyes. Concentrated. Focused. A steady, systematic breathing passed through my nostrils. The colors behind my eyelids shifted to dark indigo, coagulating from shade to tar.

There was a pulling in my chest. A splitting, like I was a cell during mitosis.

There’s two of me. There has to be.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Babbit. His gray hair was pulled back into a much shorter ponytail than usual. He’d lopped it off himself, though a couple of beaded braids were still intact. The dark mirrored frames that hid his eyes were mesmerizing pools.

He grinned, clasping his hands behind his back. “A good Diabolique should be fast and flawless. Indistinguishable. And—”

Babbit shimmered out of existence. Just disappeared. Only to reappear about four feet away and left of where he had been standing.

“—there should only be one of you at a time.”

My jaw dropped.

“What?” he asked.

I barely found words. “Yours talked.”

Babbit snickered, nodding. “A perfect mimic should be able to do all the things you do, Quinn. Takes a lot of mastery, but you’ll be able to do it too.”

I shook my head, clearing the daze. “Wow. Just wow. That was really something, Babbit. At no point did I think that last one was a fake.”

Babbit gave a snort. “And how about this one?”

“Huh?”

Just as the old man once again shimmered into oblivion, replaced by empty air and a view of the marsh, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I quickly spun around to face yet another Babbit, grinning inches from my face.

“Are you kidding me?” I laughed, stumbling backwards. “Is this the real you?”

“You’ll never know,” Babbit said sharply. He aimed his index finger right at me. “And that’s exactly how the spell should work.”

I nodded, fighting my eyes from rolling. “All right, all right. I get it.”

“Do you?” Babbit asked, more seriously. “You’re still thinking of a Diabolique like a carbon copy, a facsimile. I can tell that much just from the way you’re gritting your teeth.”

“I’m still doing that, huh?”

Babbit nodded. “Yep. Look, Quinn, Diabolique is—it’s complicated.”

“It’s French,” I replied. “All the French ones are.”

“But,” Babbit went on, raising a finger and shifting his weight on his trusty rake. “It’s easy to master. It’s a two-tiered spell. You’re not just copying yourself, you’re cloaking your true self. You’re not just a matador waving a red cape—you’re the matador, and then you’re the cape. One then the other. Never both.”

Was I that transparent? Or not transparent—apparently that was my problem.

“I don’t know how else to think about it,” I admitted. “I don’t want the real me to disappear. And that’s what it feels like. Like I’m dying or something. Fading away.”

Babbit gave a shake of his head, flicking the beads about his shoulders.

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