The Sorcerers’ Concern

On one side of the palace was a laboratory reserved for the exclusive use of the palace’s sorcerers. Built with stone walls and a stone floor, the room had no personality; there were no frescos or stuccos ornamenting the space. Instead, there were complex patterns drawn on the floor.

At first glance, these would appear to be nothing more than geometric patterns—but they were, of course, not simply for decoration. The lines were actually a combination of special glyphs that formed a magic circle, and it had been constructed by the head sorceress, Irene von Altman.

This circle was extraordinary; by obstructing the diffusion of its user’s magic, it allowed the user to draw on their full power while also minimizing leakage into the surrounding environment. When I’d explained this to the princess, she’d commented to herself, “So it’s like a thermos flask.” I still had no idea what she’d meant.

Standing in the center of the magic circle, I—Teo Eilenberg—closed my eyes and steadied my breathing, concentrating and summoning the power that flowed throughout my body. When I slowly opened my eyes, I could innately sense that their color had changed from earthen red to gold.

I had clasped one hand atop the other, and I slightly parted them to peek inside. There was a stone in my palm, about the size of my thumb, and I conjured the mental image of infusing my power into the stone.

Be patient. Take your time. Be precise, as if you’re threading a needle.

The stone’s color began to change, bit by bit, as though in manifestation of my mental image.

It’s working. Keep it going, I encouraged myself. Keep it going.

But at that exact moment, a loud sigh from behind distracted me. The color that had started to accrue within the stone drained away, returning it to its original translucent state.

Disappointed, I sighed heavily, just as the boy behind me had. “Luuutz,” I groaned at my partner.

The boy in question, who was sitting in the corner of the room, sluggishly raised his head. “What?”

When I saw the dumb look on his face, I clenched my fists. “Don’t ‘what’ me. Do you know how many times I’ve had to listen to you sighing?”

He was silent for a moment. “Three?”

“Fifteen!” I responded immediately, glaring at him for not answering seriously.

Lutz didn’t seem to feel guilty. “You’ve been counting? Must have a lot of time on your hands,” he said with audible exasperation.

I squeezed my right fist and sensed my magical power surging into it. Just let me hit him. “I don’t! I’m trying to get this done, but I can’t because your constant sighs are all I can hear!” I stomped on the stone floor to vent my irritation. “If you don’t want to be here then stop distracting me and get out.”

After a pause, he said, “I never said I don’t wanna be here.”

I replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “How am I supposed to believe you when you’re sat over there on your ass with that stupid look on your face?”

Lutz raised an eyebrow, and then without speaking, he stood up and crudely patted the dust off of himself. He shot me a glare as if to say, “Happy now?”

I smirked. A little goading always does the trick with him, I thought. I walked over to the wall, allowing him to enter the magic circle.

He headed toward where I’d just been at the center of the circle but came to a stop before reaching it. He turned around and looked at me imploringly. There was silence while he hesitated, but then he spoke. “So you’re not thinking about it?”

He didn’t specify what “it” was, so he could’ve been asking about anything. However, I knew exactly what he wanted to know.

“Of course I am.”

In my mind, I saw the face of our younger friend, a girl who meant a great deal to both of us. We hadn’t been able to see her over the last few days. She probably had her hands full preparing for her departure.

“You aren’t worried about the princess?” Lutz asked sulkily.

I shot him down immediately. “Do you really think that?” I knew that Lutz wasn’t saying it seriously, but I couldn’t let the question pass unchallenged. My words insinuated a deeper query: “You must be feeling the same way as I am, so are you seriously asking that?”

“Sorry,” muttered Lutz, seeming ashamed of himself.

When I saw his crestfallen reaction, I regained some of my composure. Turns out, he isn’t the only one on edge. I let my irritation escape in a single sigh and then cast my eyes down, tousling the hair on the back of my head.

“Sorry,” I apologized.

Lutz shook his head. “No. I started it.”

“Yeah, but you always do.” I purposefully put on a playful air. “I should’ve been the adult and just let it go,” I jokingly replied.

Lutz relaxed and put on a smile. “Shut it.”

Now that the atmosphere in the room had lightened, I felt relieved. It was always best to settle fights with my partner early on.

Lutz walked up next to me and leaned against the wall. Looking into the distance, he quietly said, “I’ve been wondering what I could do to stop her from leaving. The world out there is full of dangers. It’s not the right environment for a fragile girl like the princess to have a fun, carefree trip. She might get into treacherous situations and see things that’ll stick with her. The food won’t taste anything like what she gets in the palace, and she’ll be sleeping on stiffer beds. And most importantly, she might hurt herself, and then it’ll be too late to do anything about that. This whole time, I’ve been wondering how to get her to understand all that.”

“She’d flip if she heard you say that,” I butted in, astounded. “She wouldn’t want you treating her like a three-year-old.” You’d need to at least be more careful with your word choice if you wanna convince her.

The look on Lutz’s face couldn’t have been more serious though. “A three-year-old raised in the city would have a better chance of understanding what I’m talking about than the princess. She knows barely anything about the world outside the palace. She’s never slept in musty beds, has never had to put up with the taste of weak, watery soup or half-rotten meat. And she doesn’t know that some lives are worth less than a few coins, or about the horror of having to kill for bread crumbs, or any of it.”

His moving speech wasn’t delivered in a criticizing tone; he wasn’t denigrating the princess, but merely stating facts. As our teacher had said, the princess’s birth into the royal family had left her with responsibilities and hardships that we were unaware of. However, in the same way, some horrors and evils were only known to city dwellers, and no amount of talking could bridge that gap. A picture’s worth a thousand words, and there’s a world of difference between learning about something and experiencing it firsthand.

“I understand what you’re getting at,” I said, “but the princess won’t be stopped.”

I recalled the look on her face when she’d said, “Be here for me when I get back.” Her smile had been gentle, but her eyes had harbored a look of indomitable determination. “She might not know hunger or hatred, but she knows what she has to do.”

Lutz bit his lip and lowered his head. He looked frustrated, but he didn’t dispute my words. I was sure that he knew, just as I did, how endlessly stubborn the princess was, and how consistently unpredictable she could be.

“And...she knows that we’re genuinely worried about her.”

“I know that...” Lutz began to slip down the wall he was leaning on. He crumpled into a sitting slump once more and buried his face between his knees. “That’s why I couldn’t say anything to her...”

From my higher elevation, I patted Lutz’s head a few times.

“Don’t treat me like a kid,” he said, brushing my hand away, but I didn’t mind.

“We can’t keep her from going,” I said, “but what we can do is send her off with smiles. That’s about the only thing left to us.”

“We can give her the amulets too,” he pointed out glumly.

“You’ve got that right,” I agreed with a smirk.