Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1) (10 page)

At least he’s honest
,
she thought.

Dr. Gellar motioned Jade over to one of the chairs in the public area. “If you would like to have a seat over there, we can begin your power testing. I’m going to attach some electrodes to your head, neck and a few of your fingertips and then we can begin.”

The room was silent as the doctor connected Jade to the monitoring equipment. Jade released her hair from her ponytail and shook it out, knowing it was probably in a huge halo around her head. She wasn’t one of those women who could take their hair down and have it look like she stepped from the pages of a magazine. Out of the ponytail, her hair curved along a huge wave from where the elastic sat. It puffed from her head like a lion’s mane. Gellar clipped more sensors to Jade’s fingertips, and put a few on the side of her neck. Jade tugged at a few of the electrodes and poked at the machine they were attached to until Dr. Gellar rolled it out of her reach.

“Try to remain still, Jade,” the doctor admonished.

Jade snatched her hand away and leaned back in her seat, tapping her foot on the marble floor.

“Completely still,” Dr. Gellar said without even looking over at her.

Feeling churlish, Jade stuck her tongue out at her and then felt like an idiot for doing it, but it was too late. She slunk lower in her seat.

“Okay,” Dr. Gellar said as she made one final adjustment to the machine, “now we can begin. Paris tells me that you’ve already been able to generate fire?”

“Yeah.”

“I want you to try again now.”

Jade held her hand out at elbow level and immediately a blue flame appeared in the center of it. Eyes wide, the doctor tilted her head sharply at Jade’s palm and then glanced at Paris.

“I know,” he said. “She has a knack for that one.”

Dr. Gellar raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything as she made a few notes on a clipboard. Jade craned her head over to the side to see if she could read it but it was too far away.

The doctor returned her attention to Jade. “Can you extinguish it?”

As soon as she was done asking the question, the flame winked out with an audible
puff
. Dr. Gellar made additional notes.

“And bring it back.”

The flame sprung up in front of Jade again, only this time, she didn’t even raise her hand. The flame just floated softly in front of her at chest height.

“Jade, would you be able to change its shape?” asked Paris.

She shrugged. “I guess.”

Thinking about the tiny flame caused it to dance a bit and she could feel the shape of it in her brain. She pulled at it, twisting it, getting a feel for it and then stretched it out and shaped it. She thought about a triangle and then discarded that idea immediately for a pyramid. The flame flickered into a flat triangle and then quickly folded in on itself and settled as a pyramid, keeping up with her thoughts. She rubbed her fingertips together and, feeling a rough edge along one of her cuticles, turned her focus away from the flame in front of her and looked down at her nail. When she glanced back up at the pyramid, it was rotating lazily in front of her, like a gyroscope, in three dimensions. She looked over at Dr. Gellar who was staring from Jade to the flame to the machines with interest.

“Anything else?” Jade asked.

Dr. Gellar came to stand in front of her. “You can extinguish your fire again, Jade.” As it dissipated, she held out both hands toward Jade, a small object in each. Her right hand held a tiger eye stone, the left held a small gold coin.

“One of these objects has been charmed.” Dr. Gellar stated plainly. “Can you tell which one?”

Jade looked at the items in the doctor’s hands and although she didn’t know why, she immediately pointed at the coin. Surprising herself, she raised her eyes to the doctor, who nodded and put the stone in her pocket.

She handed the coin to Jade. “What can you tell me about this?”

Jade took the coin and turned it over in her fingers. The top of her knuckles tingled slightly. She rested the coin on the top of her fingers, in the soft skin between her pinky and ring finger. The coin rolled easily from knuckle to knuckle, flipping itself over. She moved her fingers slightly, letting the coin flip itself over, running back and forth across the top of her hand.

“It was charmed so it won’t fall off,” she stared down at the flickering gold. Then, turning to Paris, she asked, “How do I know that?”

“Magic lingers, gives off an energy,” he said as though it was a response she would fully understand.

Jade handed the coin back to Dr. Gellar, who in turn handed her another object. It was a solid clear ball, like a paperweight, only it had no flat surface to rest upon.

“Crystal ball,” Jade said with a wry huff. “Can I pick out next week’s lotto numbers with this thing?”

“It’s actually filled with water,” Dr. Gellar said as she stepped back slightly.

Jade shook the ball and, while there was no air in it for bubbles to appear, she could feel the sluggishness of it, the heavy weight that indicated it was full of liquid volume.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You tell me,” Gellar replied.

Jade eyed her dubiously, grey eyes clear and keen. She opened her mouth to ask a question.

“No fire,” Paris said quickly, answering her unspoken words.

Jade’s eyebrows drew together. “Well, gimme a word you want me to use or a hint.”

He shook his head. “No hint. Either you can or you can’t.”

“Can or can’t what?” Jade huffed, exasperated. “I still don’t know what you want me to do.”

“There’s no right or wrong answer,” Paris replied and Jade rolled her eyes. Oh. So it was one of
those
kinds of things. “Please try, Jade.”

“Try what? I mean, I can chuck a pretty mean fastball.” She hefted the ball in her hand and eyeballed the distance to Paris.

“No throwing,” he said, amused. “You’ve shown me how you well handle fire. Show me what you can do with water.”

Jade sighed and regarded the clear ball. She had no idea what to do. She tossed it from one hand to the other, juggling it while she thought. She rolled it between her hands and admired its simple qualities. Heavy and smooth. Heftier than a baseball, but almost soft, like if she pressed hard enough, she would be able to make a dent with her fingertips. She thought about how she could make it warm but without using fire the only thing that came to mind was to keep rolling it back and forth. She hummed softly to herself; her mind began to wander. Before she knew it, she was holding the ball in front of her chest, between her two palms. Without thinking, she let go, and was only moderately surprised when it hovered in midair instead of smashing to the ground. She could feel a slight pressure behind her eyes, a low key throbbing. She focused on the pressure and the ball began to rotate. Turning slowly, gyroscopically, it was mesmerizing to watch. It caught the light, and she could see objects in the lab through its crystalline surface. They became misshapen from the distortion of the light through the liquid. The globe spun faster and faster, giving off a slight humming noise. She found it soothing, and the more she thought about how pacifying it was, the louder it got. Watching it rotate madly in front of her, she became drowsy. Her breathing slowed, became more shallow. She felt like she was drifting to sleep, the white noise of the ball lulling her into a calm, serene state that she hadn’t felt since…

She jerked up in her seat suddenly, and there was a loud cracking sound. She shut her eyes and threw her hands up in front of her face, waiting for the globe to explode and send glass and water all over her. After a few seconds, when she realized she wasn’t wet, she cracked one eye open and peeked through her hands.

The globe hung in shattered pieces in front of her, but the water maintained its spherical shape and was rotating just as well as it had been before. There was no pressure behind her eyes this time.

“Am I doing that?” she asked.

“No,” Paris said simply. “I am.”

Jade slouched back in her seat. “Show off.”

“I didn’t think you meant for it to explode all over yourself.”

She gave him a dirty look. “I thought I had something there for a moment.”

“For a moment you did. But then you became distracted. Your power surged out and shattered the globe.”

“That’s why we have a mentor here when we run your tests.” Dr. Gellar explained. “To contain anything that happens. Paris was able to take control as it exploded.”

Jade eyed him a little sourly but couldn’t hide her amazement when the broken glass drifted back together around the ball of water. She could still make out cracks where it had snapped into pieces, but then each crack glowed with a bright orange heat, and the glass sealed itself.

When he was done, Paris dropped it soundly in her lap. She jumped slightly and then picked it up, turning it over in her hands. It was seamless. Perfect.

“What made you lose your concentration?” Paris asked.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“It must have been something. You were doing quite well. You seemed very relaxed, in control. Focused. And then-” he said, drifting his words off to let her continue.

It had reminded her of something, from when she was a child. A soothing feeling she used to get but it also made her nervous, sick. She didn’t like to think about it. “I don’t know, I got bored, I guess.”

“Hmm,” he said lowly, not taking his eyes off her.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “If you have something to say, you should just say it.”

“Perhaps, like you, I am thinking of nothing,” he said dryly.

“Smart ass.”

She heard Dr. Gellar let out a loud snort at her remark. The doctor coughed, trying to cover it up, but it was useless. She made a slight show of making some notes on her clipboard as she composed herself.

Jade and Paris appeared to be locked in some kind of staring contest until Gellar moved in front of Jade, cutting her line of sight. She handed Jade a lump of coal. Jade wrinkled her nose slightly as she took it and sighed.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Whatever you wish,” Paris answered.

Again with the guessing games. “Better be careful, English. I’d like to chuck it at your head.”

He smiled. “You can try.”

The coven leader clearly meant it only as a wry comment, so when she actually hauled her arm back and hurled it at him, he was frozen momentarily in shock. Surprised further, she guessed, to find that she had put her magic behind it, and the coal was glowing red with heat. He stopped it simply by pushing his palm forward. The coal halted mid-air and he raised his eyebrow at her.

“Oh shit,” she mumbled, hoping the coal wasn’t coming back in her direction.

He flicked his wrist and the rock disintegrated into a small pile of dust, settling neatly at her feet.

“Dr. Gellar,” Paris said calmly, “put her skills with earth down as ineffectual.”

“Are we done yet?” Jade asked hotly. She felt slightly put out that the coal hadn’t bounced soundly off Paris’ head, although she had been grudgingly impressed by how simply he had stopped it. In all, she was tired, annoyed and feeling a little too much like she was on display. It was frustrating knowing she couldn’t keep up - that everyone knew more than her.

Gellar made a hasty note on her clipboard. “Almost. Last one. Paris?”

Jade was about to open her mouth to ask what was going to happen next when she felt a cool wave of something press over her. It wasn’t wholly unpleasant but it did make the back of her neck tingle. Her eyes snapped up to Paris and she realized that whatever it was, it was coming from him. The wave intensified and she began to get cold.

“Stop it,” Jade demanded. “I don’t like it.” It wasn’t like the sick feeling from before but it was uncomfortable, invasive. She shuddered and curled in on herself as the feeling intensified.

Paris ignored her and the cool tingle turned to a chill and then the chill to a lower temperature. As the temperature decreased, she could feel her anger rising. She didn’t like being tricked and that’s what this was. There seemed to be a loud humming sound in the room and it felt like it was coming from Paris. Jade fidgeted, unable to control herself from cracking her neck, like she’d done earlier, like she always did when she was nervous. Her fingers clenched and unclenched and she ground her teeth. Jade shot her eyes over to Dr. Gellar who stood there calmly, watching the machines and taking notes.

“I said stop!”

This time Jade’s voice was raised. Paris ignored her. He was staring at her intently, leaning in slightly. She glared up at him and then the humming sound in the room intensified. She could feel some part of him trying to reach out and surround her, encircle her, press her, and in some strange way, squeeze her. She gripped the edge of the chair so rigidly her knuckles turned white. Whatever he was doing, he was starting to have a hard time with it. She could see a fine sheen of perspiration break out on his forehead. She could feel pressure building in her head and wondered how much longer this was going to go on. She couldn’t open her mouth to speak, the humming sound in her head was too loud. She couldn't look away from Paris, if she averted her gaze, she had this ominous sense something bad would happen.