Chương 43: Chapter Forty

I sat outside the headmaster's office with the potion vial sitting in my lap, giving off enough light to overpower the lamps of the room. Mrs. Venarith, the headmaster's secretary, was sitting behind her desk, watching me over her glasses; her elven features were scrunched up in polite distaste. The more polite of Hindor's residents often had the same expression when looking at me. I ignored it and tapped the vial, smiling as the bolt of electricity contained in the bottle jumped erratically.

I felt a tingle travel up my face and my ears twitched. I quickly stifled a giggle as I looked at my hair, now floating in a sphere around my head. The door opened, drawing my attention, and I saw Dad entering quickly, with Mom and Boyan following.

"Lyra, what's this about..." I smiled brightly at them as Dad was pushed aside by Mom, who walked over to me. I tapped the vial again nervously, my ears twitching.

"... you causing problems in potions?" Dad finished looking at the mess of hair floating around me.

"I was not causing problems. I was making the potion..." I began explaining but Mom planted Boyan in my lap, who immediately reached for my floating hair, and wrapped me in a hug. I quickly moved the vial away from Boyan and grabbed him with my other hand so he wouldn't fall off.

"I'm sure whatever it is, it wasn't intentional," Mom said. As she said that, Dad picked up the vial from my hand, bringing it to his face.

"What's this?" he asked, tapping it. The bottled lightning jolted and his hair stood on end, causing me to laugh. Mom joined me when she glanced over.

"It's an upgraded Spark Potion," I said, before jolting when it looked like he was going to open it.

"Don't open it!" Dad's hand stopped, and he looked at me questioningly.

"It's unstable right now. It needs a couple of days to settle before it can be used. If you open it right now, you'll make a crater in the ceiling. Or worst."

"Well, that sounds oddly specific," Dad said, tilting the potion. I could swear Mom was smiling, but her expression was stern when she looked at me.

"Lyra, did you make a crater in the potion classroom's ceiling?" I flinched and opened my mouth to deny it, but came to a stop as I looked into Mom's eyes.

"Maybe a little one." All she did was nod.

"A little one," she mimicked. I held up my hand with two fingers close together.

"There was very little debris." Mom shook her head and voices could be heard shouting at each other as the secretary opened the door to the headmaster's office briefly. Everyone looked that way. Except Boyan, who put the hair he had collected into his mouth and was chewing. I sighed, and started the process of getting my hair back, baby slobber and all when he headbutted me, giggling. I'm so glad he won't grow horns until his Becoming.

"The headmaster will see you now," she said, returning to her seat. I slid off the chair, holding onto Boyan even as he headbutted me again. I flicked his forehead, and he covered the spot with both of his chubby little hands, his eyes going wide. The headmaster's office was all polished dark wood and bookshelves weighted down with thick tomes. I cast Faerie Fire and had the ball of light that looked like Mom, with wings, start dancing around his head and out of his reach.

Mom eyed it critically as we moved to chairs in front of an oak desk and took our seats. The headmaster was a Toordor wearing school robes that had been altered to look like formal wear. It was one of the most gaudy things I had seen since arriving in the city, with woven gold and silver thread, and I suspected some form of gems.

"Evan, Mandy. Welcome," he said, standing and bowing. Professor Verith was standing behind the headmaster's desk and, off to the side a bit, looking rather disgruntled. And not happy. Not happy at all.

"Headmaster Alaric, it's always a pleasure," Mom said, only for Dad to mirror her. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"We got word that there had been some trouble with Lyra," Dad said questioningly. The potion had disappeared into one of his many pockets before we got to the room.

"Your daughter made a dangerous potion. One that blew up my classroom. Then refused to allow me to examine the potion or explain how she brewed it," Professor Verith swore, his voice rising.

"Then berated me, claiming I was unqualified to identify it after she had me explain what I was going to..."

"Professor," the headmaster stated, cutting off the professor. He stopped talking, grumbling under his breath. Mom and Dad were both looking at me, slightly surprised. I couldn't help the pout that painted my face.

"He called me a liar when I said the potion was unstable for now and needed two days to settle before it could be opened."

"Because you are! That's not how potions work!" I didn't stop talking even as Professor Verith's voice picked up.

"He planned on opening the potion in order to sample it to identify it. And that would have caused..."

"A crater in the ceiling." I felt heat rising to my ears, but ignored it.

"There was already a crater in the ceiling, but not big enough to go all the way through." I shrugged.

"I told him I would get it identified by Mr. Altoroth later, then he claimed I was lying about knowing Mr. Altoroth."

"Potions don't work like that."

"Well, that's easy enough to test," the headmaster said, looking at me. The professor had crossed his arms and was staring at me with profound dislike. Dad had pulled out the vial and was looking at it as my explanation came to an end. I reached over and took it from him. I shrugged, and, casting the shielding spell I had managed to learn the other day, now that I wasn't messing around with silly grammar in my spells, I caused a cyan glow to cover my family and me.

The headmaster's eyebrow ticked up as I held the potion away from me and put my hand on the cork. Professor Verith just grunted, even as Mom and Dad layered their own shield spells on top of mine, and the headmaster quickly cast his own. I opened the bottle. The spark in the bottle danced as I jostled it, then a blinding light escaped the bottle with a rolling rumble. Little did I know that this was just the precursor. I opened my eyes to see rubble falling, and Professor Verith on his butt, having fallen back.

The headmaster's small smirk registered just before the bottle in my hand shattered, cutting my hand and locking me up as I fell to the floor, spasming.

"Lyra!"

"What happened?"

"Is she..." The voices tailed off as my vision, which still only gave me a dazzling white, started to fade. The shield didn't go between myself and the vial. Only between myself and the ceiling. How could I be so stupid? I hope no one's hurt... My hearing was the first to return.

"Why is she bleeding mana?" A voice asked. Professor Verith? Maybe. It sounded muffled. Mom, easily identifiable as the only other girl in the room, responded with something I didn't quite catch. Eventually I stopped twitching, and when I did the rest of my body rudely informed me what it was feeling. I admit, I was feeling a bit crispy. But mostly, I was feeling lethargic. Maybe I should just close my eyes and...

"Lyra!" The jostling caused me to open my eyes only to see Mom looking at me, her nose almost touching my own.

"Can you hear me?" I nodded at her jerkily.

"You let off a burst of mana. You need to pull it back in." That's when I noticed it. Mom was so close because she had to be. The rest of the room was covered in a thick cyan mist so thick I had a hard time believing it wasn't solid. At the same time, I had never felt so depleted. It felt as though I was missing over a quarter of my mana. I had never used so much before. But why did I now? I didn't remember casting a spell.

"Lyra!" Mom's voice brought me back.

"Pull the mana into yourself." Mom asked, so I pulled. No more distractions. I told myself firmly as a vortex slowly took shape in the fog. I was pulling it into myself, but it wasn't helping with my feeling of emptiness. I was still tired. I still hurt. But I felt... more solid. Almost like I was part of the mana cloud and only had a body because of the mana. I chuckled at the stupidity of the idea. How would Mom know where my face was if I was the mana?

My mind spun like the mana in the room, which was slowly thinning. When the mana was gone from the room, I stopped. And noticed that I was on the floor. When did I end up on the floor? Mom was sitting over me, her hands glowing with amber light as she placed them on me. Dad held Boyan as Mom worked. And I was looking at the sky through a hole twice as wide as I was. And three, rather irate people looking down at me from their offices above.

"Well, that was something," the headmaster said as he took in the scene of destruction his office turned into.

"Is she okay, Mandy?"

"She's okay." The answer seemed to be as much for her as for the headmaster. And as her hands stopped glowing, a fire lit in her eyes as she looked down from me. I went slack and closed my eyes. This wasn't my fault, I thought as Mom cleared her throat threateningly.

"I hate it here," Selean complained as the wagon train moved steadily forward as Ederall's wall came into view.

"Finally," she muttered to herself. Her violet and gold dress, out of place among the travelers, didn't show any of the dirt that would normally have accumulated over days of travel. She scrunched up her face, making her normally sharp elven features round and wrinkly.

"Don't make that face, Selean. In this low magic zone, it might stay that way," Ossel, her red-headed companion, commented. His own clothes were dusty and travel-worn. Selean scoffed, but returned her expression to normal.

"I can feel my life potential seeping from me." Selean continued to complain, but Ossel stopped walking. His attention shifted towards the center of the city.

"How is there that much mana in this tier 1 zone?" he asked quietly as a cloud of mana erupted into the atmosphere.