Chapter 80 - Forming the Coven I (Patreon)

The day before the Autumn Equinox, Dublin Castle had the look and feel of an anthill that had been kicked over. Everybody was running around, trying to finish their last-minute preparations. From gathering ritual components to practising chants, all the way to mending holes in ritual robes and baking goodies for the party, there wasn’t a single soul at rest in the entire castle.

Except perhaps Hazel, who’d scuttled out of her room before dawn, grabbed a gigantic tray of food, then locked her door shut. Enough supplies to last her the rest of the week until they all returned back to Camelot.

Felix and the other members of the coven met in Erik’s room. Vivian whistled as she entered.

“Nice digs! And you get this all to yourself?” She asked. 

Erik shrugged.

“Yeah. I didn’t have too much say in it. Honestly, it feels like a bit more than I need, but I got used to it.”

“Cannonball!” Sora shouted as she flung herself onto Erik’s bed. The mattress creaked under her assault and half-flung her back in the air. “Weee!” 

Vivian smirked and elbowed Alex with a knowing grin.

“Shut up.” She hissed.

Vivian’s smile grew wider.

“I didn’t say anything.” She teased.

“I know exactly what you were thinking.” Alex grumbled.

Erik clapped his hands, his cheeks flaming red. Vivian’s grin was ear to ear.

“Oi, Vivian, knock it off.” Sora said, still lying flat on Erik’s bed and staring at the ceiling. “You’re going to scare them all off. You’re making them sad. Not cool.”

“Ritual prep!” Erik announced, clapping his hands. “Let’s grab our supplies, do one last check, and head over to Galway.”

“Are we going to spend the night there?” Vivian asked.

“We… probably should.” Erik said.

“Incognito.” Alex whispered. “Let’s not get wrapped up in the pomp and ceremony of Heir Morsin visiting.”

Erik hesitated as Vivian pouted.

“I’m all for keeping it simple.” Felix volunteered. 

“Great, what are we waiting for, let’s GO!” Sora said, flipping herself up onto her feet and striding out the door.

“Thirty denarii says Sora forgets something.” Erik said, not moving.

“Nope.”

“No way.”

“Sucker’s bet.”

“HEY!” Sora protested, putting a hand over her heart. “I’m hurt! Wounded! That you’d think so little of me. But yeah, I’m totally relying on Erik here.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be my minion?” Erik wondered out loud. Vivian tittered, while Alex was glaring at everyone.

Sora hunched over, twisted her voice to be as nasally and annoying as possible, and started to wring her hands together. 

“Yes, master, what is thy evil bidding?”

Felix and Vivian roared with laughter, and Alex’s lips twitched. Erik just massaged the bridge of his nose.

“Right… everyone get their stuff together. Sora, my minion, your evil overlord wishes you to get five brooms, as well as three days’ food for five people.”

The girl threw a sloppy salute.

“Aye aye bossman. But uh, don’t we only need three brooms? We both have ours already.” She said.

“Five, two backups in case something happens.” Erik said. “I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. 

“What can we do?” Alex whispered.

“Mostly focus on your own gear and Vivian.” Erik said. “Everyone’s going to be running around. You kinda know where things are, but it’ll be easiest for us to grab it. Right, long day, lots to do, let’s move!”

Erik and Sora confidently left the room, leaving the other three behind.

Felix quickly packed his stuff, and took a few minutes to explore the castle. Most of that time was spent pressed against a wall, getting out of the way of people hustling and bustling about. 

One room he peeked into had an old man in the center of a crowd, smiling as the others fed him treats and heaped garlands around his neck. Felix shivered at the sight.

The man only had a single dawn left to see.

Soon enough, Felix and the rest were in a great crowd around Dublin’s argo, waiting for their turn.

“London, London, 11:30 to London.” The conductor announced. The silvery surface of the argo rippled, and dozens of wixen stepped out of the waters, moving as efficiently as possible given the circumstances. Given the number of children running underfoot, animals hooting and screeching from cages, trunks being dragged along or levitated, and other such sundries, it wasn’t quick. They filed off from the far side of the pool, before the conductor waved in the waiting members from Dublin. They slowly walked below the surface of the waters.

“London! Last call!” The porter called out. One last wizard hopped over a rope, came sprinting down the path, and did a perfect three-point dive into the pool.

“That’s gotta hurt.” Erik said with a wince.

“Can you drown in an argo?” Felix asked with morbid fascination.

“Only if you’re really, really dumb.” Alex whispered.

“Like that dumb.” Sora cheerfully chimed in.

The five of them stood around bantering while people entered and exited the argo, heading to various destinations. Eventually, their turn was up, and they went through to Galway. Erik expertly navigated them to Lynch’s Castle, which Felix looked at judgingly.

If that was a castle, he’d been living in a manor. He’d seen apartment buildings bigger than that. It was a three story stone cube, just a little bigger than the buildings next to it. There was way more bowing and scraping than he was comfortable with - and if he was reading the looks on everyone else’s face, more than they were comfortable with - but soon enough they were settled into a pair of rooms. One for the boys, and one for the girls. 

“I’ve got some reading I’d like to do.” Felix said once they’d settled in.

“Now?” Erik asked. “I thought we’d do some ritual prep.”

Felix nodded.

“Yeah, there was something in a book Paracelsus mentioned about advanced rituals that I want to read over again. See if it’s actually an issue, or if I’m just not understanding what I’m reading.” Felix shrugged. “Probably nothing important. Like, this isn’t a delicate ritual. I just want to know more.”

“Can never go wrong knowing more. Right, I’ll be next door with the girls.” Erik said.

Felix sat down on his bed and cracked open the thick textbook. He thumbed his way over to the passage, frowned, took some notes, and went to cross-reference with another book.

The effect was indeed minor, but he didn’t see a reason not to bring it up to the others. Honestly, it felt patently unfair that people were expected to start doing rituals with such a weak understanding of them.

Then again, with the casual ease with which most of his classmates picked up the material, a lot of it was review for them. Magical properties of most items, how to look things up in a chart, the meanings of the different types of shapes and what they’re good for, and so on and so forth. It was a terribly compressed class, but Felix thought a large part of that was because of how much was pure review, compared to new material. 

He and Hazel had no such advantage. It was like drinking from a firehose, and he had to wonder why nobody had bothered to contact them beforehand. If he’d only been told four years ago - no, if he’d only been told one year ago, he wouldn’t be quite so far behind.

At the same time, Paracelsus had ingrained some solid study habits. Some of the students were just skimming by, or merely sticking with the required material. Given how poorly his charms and other cast spells were going, Felix was throwing himself wholeheartedly into rituals. They worked. They made sense - for a certain, utterly mad definition of ‘sense’ where magic was involved. 

Felix double and triple-checked his conclusion, and nodded to himself. It was a minor effect, but he might as well tell the rest of the group. No sense in keeping dumb secrets, not when it wasn’t really a secret. Alex wouldn’t be happy, but what could they do?

He left his room and went next door, where the other four were playing Monsters and Magic. He was just in time to see Alex’s card-spell wipe out everything else on the field. Erik looked up with a good-natured smile, not at all bothered by his loss in the game.

“Hey, Felix! Find anything out, or do you want in on the next game?”

“Next game’s fine. Ummm…”

Alex turned a glare towards him.

“Spit it out.” She whispered.

“It’s not super important, but we’ve got a minor flaw in our ritual.” Felix said.

Alex threw her cards onto the table, and looked about ready to commit murder.

“Whoa, hold up.” Vivian said, moving behind Alex and draping her arms over her shoulders. “Our local swot’s saying it’s minor, that’s a ‘whatever’ detail for the rest of us mere mortals. Let’s hear him out.”

Felix flipped open his notebook to the diagram. Five points, with strong lines drawn between four of them, mapping the outside of a pentagram.

“Alright, so I could be wrong and I could be misunderstanding things. Erik might know if there’s someone good at rituals here we can bounce this off of. But look at the pre-existing strong bonds. Erik and Sora’s got a strong bond of childhood friendship.” Felix pointed at two dots and a line between them. “Erik and Alexandria are engaged, and are dating right now. Alex and Vivian have been friends forever. Strong bonds between everyone. Except me.” At each one, he pointed to the people and traced out the line in question, ending by tapping on the isolated dot.

Honestly, it had Felix doing some serious thinking about what the heck he was doing in the coven - but then again, it wasn’t like they had particularly strong bonds outside of the group. And he was friends with them. Just not as good of a friend as they were with each other. Hard to intrude on a lifetime of knowing each other. 

Just another way he was a stranger in the new world he found himself in. 

“Pfft. That’s nothing.” Sora said, waving it off and gathering her cards back together. She started to shuffle them.

“That is pretty high level.” Alex whispered. 

“The most important question - does it matter?” Erik asked, clearly genuinely curious.

“Pffft. That doesn’t matter at all.” Vivian said, standing up. She went over to Felix and put her hands on his shoulders, looking him up and down appraisingly. Felix was reminded again of just how unfairly good looking Vivian was.

“The real question is, have you kissed anyone before?”