Kaz pulls his staff from behind his back. It glows with that same blue light and he grins. “It’ll come to you when you need it, but obviously we can practice what you already know, and I can teach you some more. And we’ll get to that a little later. It’s a pretty complicated spell.” He tilts his head to the weapons against the wall. “Grab one.”
“Does it matter which?” I lift a brow.
“Take the first one that speaks to you.”
“Should I expect a particular language? French? Portuguese?” I lean toward the staffs. “Hablas español?”
“Cute.”
Snickering, I shut my eyes and reach out, grabbing the first weapon my fingers touch. It’s similar to the one Kaz uses, only shorter. I spin it over my knuckles. Somehow, it feels like it’s connected to me, like it belongs in my hand.
Kaz grins. “Nice choice. A Jo staff doesn’t give you a ton of range, but it can be a little faster because of its size. Now, do you remember the spell you used on that Twisted Ghost in the woods?”
“Maybe…” I tap the tip of the staff against my chin, finding the sounds before the words solidify, speaking them a second later as I hold the weapon out in front of me.
Light crawls across it and spreads out into a circle similar to the shield from the woods. Relief floods me, because until this point, I really couldn’t tell if that defense had been actual skill or just dumb luck. It’s more than enough to help me ignore the lingering pain in my shoulder.
“Perfect,” Kaz says. “You can also use these shields to deflect the Xers’ bullets. The next one’s not as easy, but like I said before, you might already know how to do it and just not remember. Watch and see.”
He murmurs the same spell I had with a small alteration in the middle, then spins the staff around his body so it creates a full globe encasing him. Its surface ripples with power and fills the room with a musical hum. Kaz taps the ground and the orb dissipates.
“Tug any memories?”
I shift my lips to one side, but nothing comes to mind. Maybe I should just repeat what he said and hope for the best. When I try, the words get tangled, and even worse, when I spin the staff, it whacks me square in the forehead.
“Ow.” I rub the sore spot. “That could have gone better.”
With a laugh, Kaz rests his staff against the wall, and pulls a small black pad out of his pocket. “It might help if you look at it.”
I study the phrase. The only real difference between it and the first spell is a single accent mark. Before I try again, I mumble the words a few times until they feel comfortable, then set the pad on a workout bench and step back.
“Show me that spin again?” The throbbing spot on my head is a painful reminder that the words weren’t my only problem on the last try. “Next time I might blind myself.”
Kaz obliges, his movements so fluid they almost look more like a dance than a defense. Just watching him I can tell he barely has to think about the next twist or turn. Did I know this as well when I was alive? Even if I’d lost my magic for a few years, I know I’d had them for a while. Will the spells and movements come back to me? The more I remember, the easier it will be not only to protect myself and Rafe, but possibly talk to the Twisted.
It takes me a few more spins to get the orb to form. Even when I get the words right, my arms do not get the technique fast at all. My very first full shield flickers and breaks almost immediately.
I let out a growl. “Guess I didn’t learn this one when I was alive. Which seems weird.”
“Not necessarily,” Kaz says. “There’s no well-defined order to the progression. Apart from learning that first shield, you mainly follow whatever your teacher feels will help you most. With how much you want to help the Twisted, that might mean you focused more on other spells and hadn’t gotten too into the defensive ones.”
I knead the back of my neck. The headache I’ve had since we got back from Blacksburg is showing no signs of easing up. Maybe I can blame my inability to do this particular move well on that. Not to mention the small problem of that bullet wound in my shoulder.
By the end of the training session, I have a better handle on it, but I’m still not awesome.
As Kaz and I walk out of the combat building, I realize there’s a part of our conversation that might have given me a new goal to chase. “You said there were other spells I might have concentrated on when I was alive. Would the Locklear library have any spell books with that kind of thing in it?”
“For sure,” Kaz says. “I can help you find them. You can start studying the traveling spell too. That one’s pretty complicated like I said, so it’s good to learn the phraseology early on.”
“Thanks.” I crack my knuckles with a thumb. “Speaking of spells, has anyone thought to look for one that, I don’t know, protects graves or bodies or whatever from the Xers?”
It’s probably a dumb question. More than likely this was one of the first things they thought about doing. But it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Kaz pauses a few feet from the doors to the main building, then turns back to me. “That’s also complicated.”
“Shocker.” I grin.
Sitting on one of the stone benches by the door, Kaz ruffles his hair with a hand, then fixes it immediately and leans against the wall. “There are obviously protection spells we can use, but most of them require continual concentration. It’s like with your shield. As long as you’re focused
