He turned to the rest of the class. “If your shield is strong when you attack, it will not break. Nothing can penetrate the shield unless you let it. Now try again. Shields up!”
I calmed down and drew my magical shield around myself. I concentrated on holding the shield while I did other things. We practiced this for a whole hour, and by the end of the class my shield was getting better, but I was tired, and Damien kept taunting me and breaking my concentration. Sometimes my shield would waver just enough for him to get a hit in.
“All right, that’s enough for the day,” said Baron Tanko.
Illusions class was more fun. Our professor was a young man, probably in his thirties or so, and quite an entertainer. For our first class, he made six illusions of himself and walked them around the classroom. We had to try to recognize which ones were illusions and which one was really him.
They all looked the same: short, curly blond hair, eyes the color of a shallow lagoon, and a wide, toothy smile. Each one was dressed exactly alike in black robes lined with silver. One girl touched the arm of one of the illusions, and it dissipated in a puff of smoke.
“Very good, Marietta,” said Professor Swindern from the other side of the room. “That, as you just saw, is one way to tell if it is an illusion or not. Illusions are not real. Transformation, however, is a different thing altogether and much harder to do. Although it is taught as one class, transformation and illusion are not the same thing.”
I raised my hand for the first time since I had come to school.
“Yes?” said the professor, squinting against the light to see me at the back.
I stood up. A few people turned to look at me, probably noticing me for the first time.
“Is it possible for a mage to change the appearance of a person?” I asked. “Like, say, hair color or the color of your eyes?”
The professor nodded as the four remaining illusions dissipated into tendrils of smoke. “Absolutely. It can be done. Many of the ladies of the nobility pay handsomely for these services. Some want their hair color changed, and some want different colored eyes; some even want their lips permanently reddened. In fact, many mages who leave the university get jobs doing precisely this.”
I sat back down on my bench. I was confused. If mages could do all that, then why did Rafe take me to see the old fae lady Magdalene and get her to use fae glamour on me?
I decided to visit Penelope to ask her after class.
“Mages use illusions to change things into what they want them to be. Some illusions can be temporary, and some can last for years. It all depends on the will of the mage who performs the transformation or creates the illusion,” Professor Swindern was saying to the whole class. “Now, can everyone please turn to pages six and seven in your books, and we can begin.”
It was a warm evening, and the leaves rustled gently as I walked down the flower-lined paths of the academy. I was looking for Penelope, so I went to her room in the professors’ house.
I knocked gently on the stout oak door.
Penelope opened the door and smiled as she always did. “Come in. What is bothering you, my dear? Come and sit with me and tell me what happened.”
“Nothing has really happened as such,” I said, sitting down next to her on the comfortable cream couch. “It’s just that I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Yes.” Penelope clasped her hands in her lap and gave me her full attention. “What is it you want to know?”
“If mages can change a person’s appearance, why did I have to go to the fae lady in the woods to do it? Rafe or even you could have done it. Now how will I get rid of it when I want to? Will I have to go back to Magdalene to have it removed?” I asked, all in one breath.
“Firstly, my dear, you had to change your appearance before you traveled to Neris, or even Greystone,” said Penelope after a moment of silent contemplation. “And I was not with you.”
“Okay. But then why didn’t Rafe or even Uncle Gabriel do it?”
“Because,” Penelope explained, “fae glamour, though it is similar to mage illusion, is undetectable by mages. If Rafe or your granduncle had put the illusion on you, or even if you did it yourself, the mages would be able to sense it.”
Oh! That made sense.
“But can someone else remove it, or will I have to go back to her?”
“I can remove it for you when you wish it,” said Penelope. “Do not worry, my dear, for now you know that it is better to leave it as is. I will remove it for you when the time is right.”
I was relieved. I said good night to Penelope and thanked her for all her help. I was exhausted and aching all over, so I had a long, hot bath and got into bed. I was too tired to go for dinner, and Vivienne very sweetly brought me a baked potato generously topped with creamy white butter as well as a slice of apple pie to eat in our room.
Celia came over to say good night, but I suspected she was only being nice to me for a chance to get to know Damien. Vivienne had told me earlier that Celia had been trying to get Damien to notice her for years; everyone knew that she had a
