Confessions of the Magpie Wizard Book 3 (Chapters 45 + 46) (Patreon)

New Kiyo art by YoghurtStripper!

Chapter 45

Nagoya, Japan

Tuesday, August 12th, 2050

Despite some tossing and turning the night before, I hadn’t devised a plan by the next morning. I told myself not to worry too much. One can’t rush inspiration, after all. When it came to Maggie Edwards, acting rashly never paid off. I’d pretend all was normal.

I arrived at the workout room. Despite the show of solidarity a few weeks before, our unofficial running club had shrunk back down to Rose, Kiyo and I.

“You know what? I’m tired of using the treadmills all the time,” declared Rose as we walked into the gym. “It’s such a lovely day. Let’s go run outside.”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think I see some rainclouds in the distance.”

Rose closed her eyes and concentrated. “No, you don’t. It’s a lovely day!”

“I stand corrected,” I said as the clouds dissipated before my eyes.

For once, it wasn’t Rose talking my ear off as we jogged around the school. Kiyo took her turn.

“So, then the Dark Queen cast Yarbov the Grey into his dungeon, but he was like, ‘you can let me out of here, or I’ll do it myself! You just won’t have a castle afterwards.’” She giggled helplessly, but trailed off and looked at me accusatorily. “You aren’t laughing, Magpie.”

“I’m sorry, my dear. I think you had to be there for that one.”

She brightened up right away. “Hey, I can lend it to you when I’m done! I only have, like, fifty hours left.”

“Fifty hours?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty short RPG.”

“A pretty short… fifty hours…” I shook my head. “Now I see why you were too busy to answer my texts.” I couldn’t keep the ire from my voice.

My subtle implication flew right over Kiyo’s head. “I’m glad you understand. I thought you might be angry about it.”

I decided to let it go. I didn’t want to waste the day on a fight. Who knew how many I had left in the human realm? Things needed to go as smoothly as possible.

Rose didn’t share my discretion. “Wait, you what? You ignored him?”

“Yeah, I was doing a marathon,” she said. “So anyway, that’s when your character, Gale, shows up at the castle because the queen summoned him, and…”

“No wonder he looked so miserable when I ran into him last night!” I had brought up the middle of the formation, but Rose sped up, running around the front and stopping at Kiyo’s side. “Soren, how many times did you text her?”

“It hardly seems important,” I said. “No hard feelings at all.”

“Like heck there weren’t! Kiyo, Soren is a sensitive boy!”

“Not that sensitive,” I said.

“How would you feel being ignored like that?” said Rose, blowing past my comment.

Kiyo slowed her pace. “I… huh. I didn’t think of it like that. I got back to him later, though.”

“How much later?”

“One o’clock, I think?” Kiyo shrugged.

“Rose, please don’t. That’s how my Kiyo is. I’m used to it by now.” Rose had chosen a Hell of a time to start meddling.

Rose shook her head emphatically. “No, Soren, you don’t get it. You’re completely whipped, but you deserve to be treated better than that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Kiyo, an accusatory note in her voice. “What’s better?”

“Well, if you’re going to spend all day playing a silly videogame, come up for air long enough to tell your boyfriend what you’re doing so he doesn’t worry about you!”

“Wand of Yarbov is not silly! It was game of the year in 2048!”

“Funny, I thought Magpie was your game of the year for 2050,” countered Rose.

Kiyo came to a stop near the Tower’s north entrance. “I mean that’s… that’s the boyfriend/girlfriend contract, right? He knows I’m a gamer. I’m going to go AWOL occasionally. Magpie’s okay with it, right?”

I couldn’t very well say that the distance made it easier to scheme, could I? “It took my risks when I dated an introvert. And for the record, I am not whipped! Kiyo simply needs a… delicate touch.”

Kiyo went quiet after that. “I think I’m done running.”

“Yes, I think that’s quite enough for now,” I said.

Rose made a sound like whip’s crack.

“Hush, you!” I barked.

Rose giggled. “I need to stop by the headmaster’s cabin to drain some magical energy, so I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Yes, go take your wild accusations elsewhere,” I said, dismissing her with a wave.

On the ride back up the elevator, Kiyo kept up her patter about the game, but the enthusiasm was gone. Her hand was glued to mine all the way up.

We arrived at the boy’s floor, but she didn’t release me right away. “Hey uh… I guess I didn’t think about the… the texting thing,” she said, avoiding my gaze. “The networks were shut down all day, right? I didn’t think to check after when my phone started buzzing…”

“Don’t worry yourself a bit, my dear,” I said, giving her a playful tap on the nose. “It’s water under the bridge.”

She didn’t take the invitation to cheer up, and bit her lip nervously. “I mean, I guess I’m kinda… I can’t think of the last time I did that without you there. Just tuned out the whole world and lived in the game. Am I going back to… y’know. The way I was when we first met?”

I shook my head and forced a playful laugh. I thought I could see where she was going, and I didn’t like the implications for my triple life. If she was reverting, she was bound to start snooping around. The elevator’s doors began to close, so I guided her into the empty waiting room on the dorm floor. We were still an hour out from class, so the carpeted room was deserted.

“That’s just you getting your money’s worth, right? You were on lockdown and cut off from the outside world. There’s no shame in it.”

She had pulled out her phone with free hand and scrolled through the messages. “Wow, you texted me, like, twelve times. You were really worried. How can you be so calm about it now?”

“Angel, it isn’t…”

“No, it is a big deal,” she said, cutting me off. “Is something wrong? With us?”

I laughed jovially. “What could possibly be the matter?”

“Soren, am I like… a burden?”

“Burden? Where did that come from?”

“I dunno. Forget I said anything.” She laughed without humor. “Hey, I’ll see you after class, okay? I gotta go get ready for Ms. Edwards’ stupid quiz.”

“The Wizard Corps are a bunch of slave drivers,” I said. “I can’t believe they’re already teaching classes again. They just flew in last night.”

“Yeah. Bet that’s why she did a pop quiz, she didn’t have to think.”

“That certainly does sound like Maggie.”

“Yeah… Maggie. Well, bye. Love you, Magpie.” She took a step towards the elevator, but looked at me expectantly.

She often baited me to return her declarations of love, but something in me never could comply. Love is the cornerstone of the Enemy’s entire philosophy, and my remaining shreds of demonic pride prevented me from responding in kind. Funny how I could throw myself into mortal danger for her, but those three little words stopped me short.

Besides, it was more fun to respond with action instead of words. “Remember the first time we kissed?”

“Yeah, you backed me against the wall, then slammed your hand on it. Yeah, just like that, they call it a kabedon online. Then you just went in for-”

There, that was a much better use for my mouth than any professions of love. Less likely to get me in trouble, too.

Chapter 46

“So, there I was,” declared Mr. Maki, his booming voice carrying through the whole classroom, “thrown from the deck of the Alabamaby a cowardly demonic attack! Thinking quickly, I fired my Sonic Blade affinity straight down, creating a shockwave that stopped me in midair long enough to whip up my real plan.”

“I thought today’s lecture was supposed to be about increasing friction with magic,” I whispered to Mariko.

“I don’t mind,” she said from her seat next to me. “I haven’t decided if that qualifies as attack magic or not.”

We stopped for a moment as Mr. Maki’s gaze turned towards us. We had gotten quite good at having a conversation without harming his overinflated ego. One learns not to make the Divine Blade think that he’s being ignored. I wondered sometimes if the Wizard Corps had selected him to be a spokesman, or if he had volunteered for the job. However, he was so wrapped up in his war story that we were able to carry on with the occasional pause.

“Any magic is a weapon if you look at it the right way.”

“That’s nonsense. There are plenty of peaceful spells. Merlin’s Lantern is just a flashlight, for example.”

“You weren’t there when Rose lit a fire with it.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh my! I forgot about that.” She shook her head. “That was a one off. There’s always healing magic.”

I shot her a cocky smirk. “You’re making it too easy, my dear! If you grow the new tissue wrong, you can cut off an artery or permanently seal somebody’s mouth shut.”

“Alright then, Mr. Literal. The design is what matters. You can use a chopstick as a paintbrush, but you wouldn’t want to.”

“That sounds like a concession to me.”

Mariko puffed out her cheeks in an adorable pout. She had to know by then that only encouraged me. “Then I suppose you don’t want the muffin in my bag? I wouldn’t want you to think I was poisoning you.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” I said, perhaps a little too quickly. It had been weeks since she had baked, and I knew I would not have many more opportunities like that.

She waited a moment for Mr. Maki to turn his back before slipping me a still-warm package wrapped in tin foil. I hid it in my own bag; we were already taking a risk with our side chatter.

“It’s been forever since I baked anything,” she said. “It filled some extra time I had this morning. I hope I’m not rusty.”

“I’m sure it will be fine.” Once I had it, it was my turn to grin back at her. “Though, if you baked it like last time, this is slow motion heart failure. You see? Anything is a weapon.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she said, though her refined grin softened the blow.

I decided to press my luck a little further. “You’re looking like you’re in much better spirits.”

Her mouth turned into a thin frown. “I don’t know if I would go that far, but wallowing will only make everyone else worry.”

I didn’t have a smart response to that, so I decided to go back to listening to the war story.

“Thankfully, I was able to find a piece of driftwood to cling to. Then what should come at me but one of their demonic monsters, swimming through the water and carrying a whole squad of orcs!” Mr. Maki gestured wildly now as he paced, his eyes unfocused. He was half recounting the battle, and half reliving it. “The beast looked like a monitor lizard, only the size of a cement truck. At least, that’s what I think the poor beast was at one point. Lizards don’t usually spew green fire from their mouths or have six eyes.”

“What an exaggeration,” I said. “Meridraken only have four eyes.” The dumb beasts weren’t even especially useful. In the Old World, a fire breathing meridraken with a squad of orcs was the scourge of wooden vessels. Against the Anti-Demonic League, though? A waste of feed, if you asked me. They were sluggish on land, and a proper human boat could always outmaneuver them. Orc commanders saw them as status symbols, though, so there were always a few in any major action.

“What was that?” The class was laid out with the desks at five different levels, connected together by a set of stairs. Mr. Maki decided that he didn’t need any of that nonsense, and reached my level with Mariko in a single bound. I caught just a hint of magical manipulation about him, but I was not focused enough to see what he did. Since he didn’t cast a spell, it must have been a minute adjustment of his affinity. I might have known the trick, if I’d been listening in.

I stifled a curse as he towered over me. Of all of the things for him to overhear, it just had to be my snark. I decided to own up to it. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. I saw a few up close in England. They only have four eyes.”

He looked at me quizzically. “I’m more surprised you knew the term in Demon-tongue.”

I carefully considered how to answer him. I decided to play for sympathy. It tended to make humans shy away from further questions. “When the Horde invaded England, I wasn’t… entirely successful in evading their patrols. I was captured and made to tend to one of those beasts for a time. I didn’t understand most of what they said, but I learned that word very well.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Well, raise your hand the next time you have something to add. Now quiet down and pay attention. That goes for you too, Ms. Yamada. You two aren’t as good at pretending to be on task as you think.”

“Yes sir,” we replied in near unison, though Mariko stuttered.

We seemed to have broken the spell of his story after that, since he wrapped up his recounting of the battle in a less colorful way. That earned me a few annoyed looks from students who I’m sure would rather have had story-time than begin the task of memorizing runic stanzas about friction. It involved a fair deal of real-world mathematics.

I thought I had gotten away with it until it came time for Mrs. Perera’s Races of the Horde class. She had much more energy than Mr. Maki did. She had not been deployed with the other teachers, given her decrepitude. She did not launch into one of her typical lectures. Instead, she assigned some readings from our textbook, but called me to the front of the room, and to be sure to bring my book bag with me.

“I have a job for you, Mr. Marlowe.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Asahi told me something very interesting today. Do you speak you-know-what? That’s an unusual talent.”

My heart skipped a beat, before I remembered that I had nothing to fear from Neci Perera. We were brothers in holy arms, after all. “A bit, ma’am.”

“You may have noticed that I’m not as young as I used to be. I won’t be here forever.”

“What? Perish the thought. You don’t look a day over thirty.”

She chuckled. “I wish Father Time was that easy to sweet talk. Speaking of which…” She cleared her throat, and in a louder voice she declared, “Mr. Marlowe, you’re missing that assignment on anti-goblin fighting techniques from last week. What’s your excuse?”

“I…” She winked at me and I caught on. “It must have slipped my mind, ma’am.”

“I expect better from you.” She closed her eyes and focused her energies, and the students outside of a small bubble around her desk froze in place. I was glad to be let in on her slowed time affinity for once; I was less likely to get groped.

“Let’s have some privacy, Holy Brother Mockingbird, so we can cut the crap.” Mrs. Perera pulled a thick, paper notebook from her bag and tossed it onto the middle of the table. It was well used, with colored bookmarks sticking out in all directions. “I’ve been writing a dictionary of Demon-tongue, and I want it to be as complete as possible. Asahi said you used a demonic name in class. Have you been holding out on me?”

More than she could possibly imagine. “Perish the thought, my dear. I didn’t know anything about your little project. I’ve been teaching some demonic spells to our dear Holy Sister Shrike, so if anybody has been holding out on you, it’s her.”

Mrs. Perera frowned disapprovingly. “You have? Dumb little bitch went behind my back. That’s completely idiocy.”

“Oh, why is that?”

She got up and started pacing, using her cane for support. “I know you’re a reformed demonkin, Mr. Marlowe, but there are taints that you can’t remove. We want to keep humanity pure; if we learn demon magic and become exactly like them, we’ve gained nothing.”

That was quite the declaration, given the Brotherhood’s crimes, but I couldn’t disagree with her about demonic magic’s deleterious effects. Mariko’s nerve damage and Haru’s coma certainly made a fine case for that, and my demonic aura had been noticed on medical examinations. I didn’t see it as a problem, per se, but it seemed to exact a toll on humans without the benefit of my demonic blood.

“I don’t see what the fuss is,” I said, trying to act nonchalantly. “A tool is a tool. We used demonic fabricata to test my truthfulness. Our little club is no stranger to using the enemy’s tools.”

“That’s different,” she said. “A spell isn’t a tool like a hammer. Magic is more personal than that. When you cast a spell, you’re taking your spiritual essence and putting your stamp on reality, and the demonic spells corrupt you over time. It’s why the Headmaster and we other first-generation wizards had to create our own set of human runes. The demonic stuff is effective, but just knowing it corrupts you.”

I had to fight to keep a grin off my face. Proving that there’s truth to the Horseshoe Political Theory, Mariko and a bloody Holy Sister had similar outlooks on the nature of magic.

Mrs. Perera didn’t say anything, but she winced and rubbed her lower back before making her way back to her chair. “I’ll use it in a bootleg fabricata, but I won’t take it into myself. I need to watch my health.”

“Of course not,” I said. “You’ve still got the best years of your life ahead of you.”

She shot me an angry glare. “You’re a shameless flatterer, Marlowe.”

“Say the word and I’ll stop,” I said in a sly tone.

She pointed her cane at me. “Don’t you dare! It’s more than I get from my useless husband these days. Anyway, we got off topic. I’m interested in the spoken language, not the runes. Take the dictionary with you. Add in any words that I’m missing, and correct anything you think is off.”

How fantastic, another responsibility, and one that could only implicate me if I were found out. “Surely you’re the expert,” I said. “What could I possibly know that you don’t?”

“I’ve never broken bread with demonkin,” she said, sliding the dictionary across her desk to me. “You have. I’ve also never heard of a ‘Merry Draken’ before. So, you have at least one word to add in.”

“I’m trying to keep my cover, though,” I countered. “It’s bad enough that you all know about my past. What if somebody sees me running around with a High Demonic to English dictionary?”

“I’ll say you’re helping me proofread it,” she replied. “I won’t imply you’re adding to it if you don’t.”

So much for that escape route. “Very well. I’ll do my duty as a Holy Brother,” I said as I reluctantly stowed the notebook in my bag.

“Of course you will,” she said. “You’re a good boy. Well, good enough, at least.” She grunted in concentration again and the world came back to life. “Make sure you get that missing homework to me by the end of the week,” she said, just loud enough to be heard. “And take care of that reference book!”

“Of course, ma’am. It won’t happen again.” I gave a shallow bow in the Japanese style (even the foreign-born teachers seemed to expect the gesture) and returned to my desk.

It would turn out that Mrs. Perera had the start of a pretty decent dictionary going. There were a few hundred words, which was a few hundred more than I had expected any human to have grasped. We didn’t exactly keep up regular correspondence with the human realms. The Grim Horde had captured human records by the truckloads, and we had the dwindling numbers of human slaves to educate us in their tongues, so demons tended to speak at least one human language decently. Goblins absorbed new languages like a sponge, so there were whole linguistic guilds whose members acted as teachers and translators. Mother had seen that I was educated in English, and I had picked up a smattering of her native Ukrainian, and I had learned to read French while in the care of Girdan the Fair. There hadn’t been much else to do in the old palace of Versailles where he set himself up.

Neci Perera had none of those advantages, which made her grasp of our lingo impressive. The first section of the book was a rough approximation of our grammar, and a decent guess at that. I skimmed it and focused on the dictionary. After some internal debate, I decided that my advice would be two steps forward, and one step back. I gave her a few dozen real words and their meanings. Basic things, like our numerical system (she had been missing our words for seven, fourteen and any number higher than twenty-five), a few insults and curses, and some place names. She seemed to think that we had renamed Rome, “Romomagnan,” which was complete gibberish. They might as well know that their doom came from Pandemonium.

However, I didn’t want to seem too knowledgeable. They thought me a demonkin, but being demonkin didn’t mean that you were constantly conversing with devils. It simply meant you had an unpatriotic admiration for them. I doubted that Harriet Oswald would have been able to read Fera’s letters, no matter how good she was.

So, I made some notes in the margins where I questioned the meanings of words she had defined correctly, and I threw in a few improper spellings in among my additions. The trick was to be useful enough that she didn’t think I was shirking, but not so useful that she thought I was holding out on her. I wanted this to be a one-time assignment. I completed the exercise that night, but I would wait a few days before returning it. It was much like a husband who knows how to do laundry spoiling a load so he wasn’t asked to do it again.

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