“I didn’t know she could be a fish,” Yong said defensively. And confusedly. “I’m not even sure I know what we’re talking about anymore.”
“You wouldn’t,” Dr. Kowalski grumbled. “Foolish dragons, always thinking they know better.”
My dad took a step back, and I had to scramble not to choke on my grains. I’d never seen the Great Yong look so flustered, and it was absolutely priceless. But as much as I was enjoying this, I hadn’t actually brought my dad here to get chewed out.
“Dr. Kowalski?”
My teacher glowered over her shoulder, and I pointed at my dad. “You’re absolutely right about everything, but I don’t think he’s going to be making the same mistake with another mage child anytime soon, so would you mind taking a look at his magic and telling me if you see any way I can speed up the transference?”
“What’s wrong with what you’re doing?” she asked, the anger fading from her voice now that we were no longer focused on my father’s sins against young mages. “Last I heard yesterday, he was still in a coma. I’d say you’ve had great success.”
“But it’s still not enough,” I said, quickly telling her about his smoke form and how my soul ached whenever I passed magic to him. “It’s the same feeling I used to get when I’d backlash myself, but I’m not backlashing! I’m passing him perfectly safe amounts of magic, which is unfortunately barely enough to keep him functional. I need to be building him up, not treading water, but I’m worried I’ll dislocate my soul again if I increase the power.”
“First, good on you for listening to your body,” Dr. Kowalski said proudly. “Now, as to your problem, the pain you’re feeling is probably related less to the volume of magic and more to the fact that you’re passing him dragon fire, or a very close approximation thereof. Just like every other form of magic, dragon fire is true to its nature, which unfortunately means it burns. Since you are not a dragon, it’s only natural that you wouldn’t be able to hold large amounts of it without pain.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassed. It sounded so obvious when she put it like that. “So what do I do?”
“I don’t know,” she said, scowling in thought. “Let me consult a few books and get back to you. In the meantime, why don’t you go out and take care of the watering? Today’s vegetable is on the counter.”
There were a lot of vegetables on the counter, but only one she could be talking about. “You mean this?” I asked, picking up a butternut squash the size of my arm.
“That’s the one,” Dr. Kowalski said, walking down the hall toward her library. “Make sure you drench everything. We’ve had a long dry spell, and autumn gets hotter every year.”
I assured her I would, but I didn’t think she heard me. She was already climbing up the built-in bookshelf to pull down some huge academic tome with a title so long, it took up the entirety of the book’s spine. Satisfied that my problem was in good hands, I grabbed my squash and headed outside, taking care to fill the gourd properly with magic before I pulled the power right back out and shaped it into a giant hand big enough to grab the fifty-gallon rain barrel under the downspout at the house’s corner. Filling the squash with magic again, I shaped the diffuser next, lifting my hand over my head to create a shimmering barrier of magic poked full of tiny holes.
The finished product was kind of like an upside-down sieve big enough to cover the entire garden. When I had the magic shaped just the way I wanted it, I upended the first spell over the second, pouring the rain barrel over the diffuser so that the water inside trickled over the barrier, falling through holes onto the garden below exactly like rain.
It was a pretty neat trick if I said so myself. One I’d perfected over weeks of having to do this chore nearly every morning. When I finished emptying the first barrel and turned to grab the next one, I saw my father watching from the cottage’s back door with an expression of wonder.
“That was incredible, Opal.”
I shrugged, embarrassed he was so impressed over such a small thing. I mean, the rain-barrel-giant-sieve combo was a big deal for me, but any real mage could have watered this garden in no time. “Dr. Kowalski’s a good teacher.”
“So I’ve been made aware,” Yong said, sitting down on the back step with a bitter sigh. “I really did think I was doing what was best for you, you know.”
“I know,” I said, upending the next barrel over my rainmaker. “You were still wrong, but I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I only wanted you to live up to your potential,” he said, clearly desperate to defend himself. “Even when you failed, I didn’t want you to give up, or to think I’d given up on you. That’s why I had your teachers push you so hard.”
“I know you meant well, Dad,” I said irritably, focusing on my work. Watching him get reamed by Dr. Kowalski had been fun, but I really didn’t want to have this conversation. The old Opal might have relished telling him how badly all that pushing had messed me up, but I’d been enjoying not being furious with my dad for once. We’d made really good progress yesterday, and I
