Chapter 56 - Coven Conversations II

Characters - 

Felix Sutter: Poor boy living in Sacramento, recently found out magic existed. Hard worker, knows the price of everything.

Erik Morsin: Heir to the Duchy of the Emerald Isle. Just wants to play his violin.

Sora Park: Erik’s loyal friend. Loves flying. An absolute broombrain.

Vivian Merryweather: An expert on all things color, fashion, and of the heart. Gets seasick easily.

Alexandria Renard: Wants to be the next Morgana Le Fay. Can’t speak louder than a whisper. 

Hazel Winslow: Ran away from an abusive cult. Awoke as a natural mind mage.

====================

One breath, one life spared.
A single babe - Seamus, wailing amidst smoke and ruin.
Bjorn, grim-faced, stayed his axe.
Not for mercy, but for power.
The bloodline could not declare a new heir unless the blood still flowed.
And now it flowed through one child - under watch, under chain, under his control.
The gods may weep at the cruelty, but fate nodded, silent and cold.

The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 19

=================

“Great!” Erik tucked away the paperwork, and pulled out a small hand held mirror from his satchel. “I know we’re in a lot of the same classes, but I figured we should all share magic mirror signatures with each other, so we can call each other if needed. I already have Alexandria’s. Errr… wait, I’m an idiot. Felix, Hazel, I’m assuming neither of you have one?”

Felix shook his head. Another toy he didn’t have and couldn’t afford. Alex was staring at the mirror like it was a venomous snake.

“What do you mean, you already have my signature?” She asked.

“Call Alexandria Renard.” Erik carefully said, and beautiful harp music filled the room. “See? It was a present from my father.”

Alex scooted back.

“Morsin… Erik… I don’t have a magic mirror.” She said.

Erik leaned back at the same time he pushed the mirror away, holding it as far away from his body as possible without letting go of it.

“Wait… then whose mirror is this connected to?” He asked.

“Vivian spent half the summer bemoaning that Avalon can’t talk with Arcadia. Different dimensions. Whoever has the mirror, it’s here.” Alexandria whispered.

“And it was in Arcadia when I first got it.” Erik continued to stare at the mirror. “Okay. Part of me wants to utterly trash this and have a long shower, the rest of me knows it’s good evidence. But…” He stared at the mirror for a long time, working his way through various thoughts.

“Sora, you want a potentially cursed mirror?” Erik asked. “I don’t think it’s actually cursed, but something nefarious is up with it.”

“I will if you stop using the word nefarious seriously.” Sora said. “It sounds like you ate a dictionary. It’s for our resident swot to use.”

Erik turned and stared at Sora.

“Seriously?” He asked, the mood completely broken. She nodded.

“Oh yeah. It might be contagious. I might start using words with more than two syllables.”

“Like contagious?” Erik asked. Sora gasped in horror.

“See! It’s already infecting me!”

“Infecting.” Felix deadpanned. Sora threw her hands up, and fell dramatically to her knees.

“Noooooooooo! … but yeah, I’ll take that magic mirror.”

The rest of them laughed.

“That was far more painful than it needed to be.” Erik shook his head. “Felix, Hazel, communication’s important, can I get the two of you one?”

Felix wanted one, like he wanted every other shiny toy other people had. At the same time, it wasn’t that easy, and he didn’t need one.

“No thank you.” He said, and Hazel nodded her head.

“What he said.”

“Speaking of covens, we need to talk about the real coven.” Alexandria whispered.

“Already?” Erik asked.

“We’re wasting time.” Alex insisted. “Every day that passes without us forming a proper coven is another day of wasted potential. Morgana formed her coven the day she hit magical maturity. Why waste the gift of magic?”

“Pffft, that’s just a story.” Sora dismissed, then cowered under Alex’s furious gaze.

“Bossman, your girlfriend is scary.” She whispered. Alex cast the flame spell on her wand.

“We’ve had one lecture on the basics of ritual magic.” Erik said. “We’re nowhere close to ready.”

“Covens are old magic.” Alexandria hissed. “We can do it! We’ll practice. New moon’s in a week, we could do it then.”

“Okay, wait, slow down. Covens are for life, right?” Felix said, looking around the room. “Are we really discussing tying ourselves to, forgive me, relative strangers for the rest of our lives that we met last week?”

“Yes. I thought you said Professor Paracelsus gave you homework about it?” Alexandria said.

Hazel looked around the room, then left without saying a word. Erik facepalmed.

“We completely overwhelmed her.” He said.

“She completely overwhelmed her.” Sora retorted. Erik half-heartedly swatted at her.

“There’s six of us, assuming you can talk Hazel around.” Alexandria said. “Six is a terrible number. No way we’ll get to thirteen, as perfect as that’d be. Just need one more for seven.”

“Who?” Erik said.

“Well…” Alexandria hesitated. Erik shook his head.

“No, I mean that far more literally than you mean.” He pulled out a small notebook, and started paging through it. “I’m the Warden, you’re the Commander.” Felix didn’t miss how Alexandria bristled at that, and made a mental note to ask more later. “I’ve been keeping track of everyone. In order. Alaric, Bones, Ashton, and Young have a proto-coven formed, and are looking for one more. The ‘Fabulous Phoenixes’. Bane’s not joining a coven. Blackwood’s sworn to Dunbrae. Brown and Chanteraine’s with De Lys. Corbin, Dunmore, and a few others are going together. Lemoine’s a possibility, she might get along with Vivian. Lynpool’s too lazy, I’m vetoing. We’ve already discussed Martin. Montford and Silvermoor are sworn to other houses. Moon’s forming his own coven. Song, Stark, and Sugarplum are possibilities. Skipping over everyone else that doesn’t work… Tidecloak would be awkward as hell, we don’t like each other but it could technically happen. That’s it.” He snapped the book shut. “And I don’t have the details yet, but I think Lynpool, Winter, and Sugarplum’s starting a coven. Who are you proposing?”

Alex went quiet, but it was a sort of happy quiet.

“You’ve been thinking about this.” She whispered.

“Yes. It’s important to you, so it’s important to me.” Erik said. “Let’s not be dumb about it.”

“I did the reading on covens.” Felix said. “But can anyone explain to me why six is such a bad number?”

“Six is the number of harmony and balance.” Alex whispered. “Except, half the goal of a coven is to help grow our magic. Harmony and balance is achieved by getting everyone to the same power, then actively stopping us from growing. It’s actually worse for you than not being in a coven at all.”

“Ah.” Felix said.

“Seven’s the number of perfection, wisdom, and introspection. Our rituals would go off better, and we’d make better choices.”

“Isn’t there some weird mumbo jumbo about six and four and other bad numbers being good on the other side of the world?” Sora asked. “Could we just use one of those? I’m half-Korean, it should work, yeah?”

Erik shook his head sadly.

“Sora, my best minion, how you manage to say things like that with a straight face I’ll never know, and I have no idea where to begin explaining why it won’t work without using the big words that scare you so.”

Sora flipped Erik off.

“Long, five page essay short: It won’t work.” He said.

“Two groups of three?” Felix suggested. 

“Three’s the bare minimum.” Alex grouched. “The more, the merrier.”

“Could we ask someone from a higher year? Like, maybe Thalia or one of the other Dragons?” Felix said. He knew like, four names of upper years, and the thought of suggesting Leona never crossed his mind.

Everyone scooted away from him.

“Are you insane!?” Alexandria whispered. “The first time we use unicorn blood in a ritual… the very idea…” She shuddered. “No. Absolutely not. I’m seriously reconsidering things, you’re nuts.”

“Well, fuck you too.” Felix said with heat. “I don’t know this shit! You don’t need to be an ass about it!”

“Whoa, whoa, let’s all chill!” Erik held up his hands. Felix was about to get up and storm off when Sora basically half-hugged him from behind, half-draped herself over his back and head like an overly broom-obsessed cape.

“Felix, you kinda suggested that we kill ourselves in cruel, unusual, and agonizing ways, and bring half our families to ruin in the process. I get that you’re new to magic and the world, you don’t have the background, but it was pretty bad, to put it lightly. Alexandria, come on. Be nice. He’s new. He’s trying to help. Felix, don’t take this the wrong way, but Alex, our options are kinda limited here. Four’s the number of stability, which is nearly as bad as six. Five’s pretty good. Change, adaptability? That opens up a number of interesting rituals. Bigger changes, better changes.”

“Perfection is superior to change.” Alexandria countered. Erik threw his hands up.

“Perfection can be the enemy of good enough! If we wait for a perfect seventh, we could miss out entirely on a year or more of growth, which you care about, which is sorta related to five!”

“Growth is three.” Alexandria retorted. “You should know that numbers can’t get fudged around like that by now!”

The two of them launched into a technical debate on five versus seven, and delved deep into numerology. Clearly, an education both of them already had, and Felix had no context for. Sora looked bored.

“Wait… what?” Felix asked.

“Imagine you’re building a… house.” Erik said. “We’re discussing if it’s better to build a larger house with slightly worse materials, or a small house with the best materials.”

“A foundation of sand will wash away the grandest palace.” Alexandria hissed.

“We’re not discussing a foundation of sand! Five’s a perfectly valid number, and you’re assuming I can talk Hazel into a coven in the first place, nevermind with an extra stranger! I’m confident on three people. Me, you, and Sora. We’ll likely be together for life.”

At Alexandria’s glare, he threw his hands up.

“What do you want me to do? Time travel back a decade and tell my father ‘no, wait, don’t engage me to the Renards, the coven math doesn’t work out perfectly?’ It’s not like I had anything to do with this, I’m just playing the hand I’ve also been dealt!”

“Vivian?” She hissed.

“Has her own life! She’s not sworn to our service. She’s welcome to come along, I’d be delighted, but there’s no promise there. Not like broombrain over there. I think I know her goals, and they’re not ‘be Alex’s best friend forever’ or ‘serve the Morsins’ or anything like that. She probably wants to be in the coven with us, we all saw her squeeze through the Thunderbird door just to be with you, but how many covens of thirteen have fallen apart entirely in a year? Forget that, how many fell apart in a month? The more people involved, the more egos flying around, the greater the chance that it all falls apart! It’s great to sketch out a beautiful dream on paper, but this is the real world now!” Erik was almost shouting at the end, and sat back down in his chair with a weary huff.

“You want this to happen. I’m trying to find a way to make it work. But you’ve got to think things all the way through. Tell me, truthfully - how well did you do with people until now?”

At the awkward silence, Erik nodded once.

“Right. And you want to dramatically increase that…?”

“Fine.” Alexandria hissed with a warning note, like a snake rattling its tail.

“How ‘for life’ are covens? Cause…” Felix trailed off, not really knowing how to form his question but hoping it was obvious.

“The important parts are the school years.” Erik said. “Unless we get into a weird ritual set, we should be done with the ‘we’ve got to be together’ parts by the time we graduate. At the same time, I don’t want to sugarcoat it or blind you. A coven together, you’re going to end up in Ireland after, just because the rest of Logres is so hostile to the Morsins, and there’s some interesting sympathetic things that could be done.”

Felix thought it all over a bit, and rapidly came to a conclusion.

“I’m kinda with Hazel on this one right now.” He said. “You’re pretty cool right now, I like being friends with you, and it just might be the noonie upbringing, but ‘we met a week and a half ago in high school, let’s magically bind ourselves to be best friends forever’ is a bit of a tall order.”

Alexandria gave an inarticulate, strangled cry of frustration, grabbed her bag, and stormed out of the room. Erik watched her go, then turned to Felix.

“I understand that.” He said. “I’m not going to pressure you about it. Talk with Paracelsus, he’s your advisor, yeah? Ask him for advice. Then ask yourself - what do you want?”

“Soo… time to go then?” Sora asked with a smile, already grabbing her stuff.

“Oh no.” Erik said. “We still have homework to do. Come on, let’s do languages first to get in the right frame of mind.”

Sora dropped with a groan, but on much firmer ground, Felix pulled out his homework, and had a lot of thinking to do while he traced out the same runes again and again.

What did he want? What did he want from magic? What did he want from Camelot?

What did he want from life?

And how would he get it?