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“If you try to draw the heat into yourself, you can be seriously hurt,” Elizabeth explained. “The amount of heat in this glass wouldn’t do much damage, but try to take the heat out of a house fire and you could easily kill yourself if you don’t disperse it safely.”

  Mitch gave a shiver. He’d seen firsthand how magic could go awry, but Elizabeth’s warning was yet another reminder. He nodded and followed her instructions carefully.

  They repeated the exercise several times until he had more control over the temperature he heated the water to and could draw out enough heat that a thin film of ice started to form on the top of the glass. It was so fascinating, that he didn’t even notice the passage of time, or how tired he was getting, until Elizabeth called a halt.

  “I think that’ll do for now. That’s a lot to learn in one go.”

  “But there’s still so much more I want to know,” he protested. He tried to shift his perception again, intending to show Elizabeth that he could still do it, but the water blurred in front of his eyes, making it impossible to see the particles.

  Elizabeth laughed. “There’s plenty more time for that later.”

  “Can we do some more this afternoon?” Mitch begged.

  “If you’re still feeling up to it then, yes,” she said with a smile.

  He leaned back on the pillows, letting exhaustion take over. “That was amazing,” he exclaimed.

  Elizabeth smiled. “Yes, but don’t let it go to your head. Magic is very powerful, and if you don’t know what you are doing, you can hurt yourself or those around you. If you want to, you can practice shifting your perception, but don’t try anything else when I’m not here.”

  “But I wanted to show Mum the water trick.” Mitch protested.

  Elizabeth’s frown was immediate, reminding Mitch that his mother was afraid of magic.

  “Maybe later,” Elizabeth said, “but only when I’m there with you. It’s still too dangerous for you to try it on your own. Soon, you’ll have enough control to fix any magical mistakes you might make, but right now, you know just enough to make you dangerous. Pay attention to what I’m saying, or I won’t teach you anymore.”

  Mitch frowned and a trace of rebellion flared. She was just trying to make him do what she wanted, just like everyone else. She didn’t really want to help him.

  Then the memory of the hot water almost burning his fingers came unbidden to his mind, and he had to admit the sense of her warnings. If he accidentally made the water too hot…

  “All right,” he conceded grudgingly.

  After she’d left the room, he stared at the ceiling, imagining all the things he would be able to do with his newfound abilities.

  Chapter 3 - Fears

  Gemma couldn’t concentrate on anything after Elizabeth and Mitch went upstairs. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t help thinking that they were up there doing magic. A cold shiver ran through her, and she jumped at every sound she heard, even when one of them laughed, half expecting to hear a scream of fear at any moment.

  Judging all magic by the fact that her mother lost control and nearly burnt the house down fifty years ago seemed a little unfair, but what other experience did she have to judge it by? She’d never met another mage that she knew of.

  Except for Mitch.

  Her son was a mage.

  That caused a shiver too.

  Why? Why had this happened? It seemed so unfair. She just wanted to live a normal life, raise her son, and grow old in peace. Magic had no place in that.

  And yet, here she was.

  At least Mitch wasn’t the heir anymore. Maybe that would reduce some of the chaos in her life.

  Gemma heaved a sigh. Sitting around dwelling on it wasn’t helping any. She needed something to keep her busy. So she put a kettle of water on the stove and began the washing.

  The routine task kept her hands busy, if not her mind. Gemma tried not to think too much, just focused on the task she knew well. The familiar sounds masked any sounds from upstairs, so she managed to distract herself for a while.

  The warm sun, when she went outside to hang out the washing on a line strung between two trees, improved her mood even more.

  She was so engrossed, she mustn’t have heard the footsteps behind her.

  “We’re done,” Elizabeth announced.

  Gemma jumped and spun round, a handful of wooden pegs clutched at her chest. “Oh, it’s just you.” Her heart was thumping.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked.

  What a stupid question. Her son was a mage. How could she be all right?

  “Yes, of course,” Gemma replied, turning back to peg another pair of shorts onto the line, hoping Elizabeth wouldn’t see the fact that she wasn’t. “I was just… lost in thought.”

  “About Mitch and his magic?” Elizabeth guessed.

  Apparently she was more transparent than she thought. Gemma heaved a sigh. “Yes, I guess so,” she admitted. She stared at the item she’d just pegged, not really seeing it.

  “Mitch was right, wasn’t he? You’re afraid of his magic.”

  Elizabeth’s words forced her to confront the very topic she’d been trying to avoid all morning. She loved her son, trusted him, but her fear of his magic was threatening to pull all that apart.

  She turned towards Elizabeth, giving up any pretence. “Is it that obvious?”

  “I’m afraid so. Mitch noticed it too, I think,” Elizabeth said gently.

  That made Gemma feel even worse. It wasn’t Mitch’s fault he was a mage, and it certainly wasn’t his fault she was afraid of them.

  Her mind shied away from the thought that the woman responsible was standing right in front of her. She should be able to get past that. This wasn’t about Elizabeth, it was about Mitch.

  “I don’t mean to be, I just, can’t help it.” Tears threatened, and Gemma had to look away. She reached blindly for a shirt and began to peg it on the line, her movements jerky.

  Elizabeth was silent for a while. When she spoke, her words weren’t what Gemma expected.

  “You’re going to have to find a way to get over it, or else send Mitch back to the Dome. It isn’t good for him to feel like you’re afraid of him. It is part of who he is, and he can’t change that. Nor should he want to.”

  Gemma’s heart skipped a beat. Back to the Dome? She looked over at Elizabeth, eyes wide, hands frozen on the last peg. “I don’t want him to go back to the Dome.”

  She wasn’t sure of anything else in her life right now, but she was sure of that.

  “Good, so how do we overcome this fear of yours?”

  Gemma didn’t have an answer to that. She wished she did. She didn’t want Mitch to think she was afraid of him. She wanted to be happy for him. To be able to share his excitement without fear.

  She just didn’t know how.

  She turned away, finishing pegging out the shirt. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice, her hands still resting on the line. “What if he loses control? I can’t do anything to stop him if he does.”

  The feeling of fear in her heart, fear of the child she’d loved since the minute he'd been born, was completely irrational.,

  But it wouldn’t be silenced.

  No, not fear of Mitch, she corrected. Fear of his magic.

  Remove that, and he was still the same sweet, loving boy he’d always been.

  “That is why I’m here,” Elizabeth said firmly. “It’s why the king sent me. As part of a mage’s training at the Academy, they undergo strict instruction in anger management. It is expected that a mage be even more competent about keeping control of his emotions than another person. In fact, in Linarra, causing harm to another person with magic is a severe crime, even more so than hurting someone in a mundane way.”

  Was she trying to convince Gemma to send him back to the Dome? Was that what she wanted? If so, why had she brought him home?

  Did Elizabeth not think he was safe here?

  “But w
e’re not in the Dome,” Gemma said. “How do they teach them to keep control like that? Can you do the same?”

  “Of course I can.” Elizabeth’s confidence was unmistakable. And it reassured Gemma just a little.

  “Although it won’t be quite the same as the training in the Dome,” Elizabeth added. She paused then, and some of Gemma’s relief slipped away.

  “Did you undergo this training?” Gemma asked. “Can you do the same for Mitch?”

  “No, I didn’t undergo the anger management at the Academy,” Elizabeth said flatly. “I did attend their courses, but when I was much older, after I already had control of my magic.”

  “Then how can you teach Mitch?”

  Elizabeth’s face tightened up. The question had annoyed her. Gemma felt stupid, asking so many questions, but all of this was way out of her depth. She didn’t know anything about any of it.

  “The same way it was taught to me,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not as pretty or gentle, but it’s quite effective. Even more effective, if the truth be known. I won’t let him lose control while I’m here, and in a few weeks, it won’t be a worry anymore.”

  For some reason, her words sounded ominous. Maybe because of their tone. Gemma wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know. So instead she followed another thought. One that worried her even more.

  “But how can you do that if you’re not here? You said you were going to stay at an inn, then there will be just Mitch and me.” Gemma hated herself for not wanting to be alone with her son, but the truth was that she was afraid of him.

  Not of him, exactly, but of what he could do. Without even meaning to.

  She waited, almost holding her breath, for Elizabeth’s answer.

  She could see the hesitation on her mother’s face. “I’ve already begun teaching Mitch control. As long as he listens to what I said, and doesn’t try to practice while I’m not here, there’s really no risk.” She paused for a moment, then said softly, “He’s not going to hurt you, Gemma, I promise.”

  “How can you promise that?” Gemma demanded, her voice shaking. “You couldn’t even do it yourself before you left here, and you were a lot older than Mitch.”

  “I had no one to…” Elizabeth broke off, and her eyes suddenly scanned the area.

  Before either of them could move, the clothes on the line in front of Gemma began to flap wildly.

  “Wha…” Gemma began.

  She didn’t have time for the thought to even form before the clothes burst into flames.

  Gemma screamed, and almost fell over the washing basket as she scrambled backwards. Her heart hammered in her chest as she tried to figure out what had happened. Had Elizabeth done that?

  Or had Mitch?

  Elizabeth didn’t move. She wasn’t afraid.

  Gemma watched, a little awed, as her mother stared at the clothes, her forehead furrowed.

  In moments, the flames disappeared. Elizabeth stared at them a little longer, before turning. She didn’t look at Gemma though, her eyes were searching the area. They moved up, to Mitch’s bedroom window.

  Gemma looked too.

  Mitch’s pale face, staring out the bedroom window, was inescapable.

  Gemma’s stomach lurched, and the overwhelming fear threatened to choke her. It had to have been him.

  And Elizabeth had tried to convince her he could control his magic enough to be safe.

  “Was that Mitch?” Gemma demanded, her voice shaking. The sight of the charred clothes, flapping innocently in the breeze, made her want to throw up.

  Elizabeth’s lips were tight. “I’m going to find out.”

  Chapter 4 - Stay

  Elizabeth took the stairs two at a time, concerned about what she would find. Had Mitch been responsible for the fire?

  The magical signature wasn’t enough to tell her. Half way between chaotic and intentional, it could well have been him. The training she’d given him that morning was enough that he certainly could have pulled it off.

  But she wouldn’t have thought he would disobey her deliberately.

  Had she misread him?

  Maybe she wasn’t capable of even this much responsibility.

  She pulled open Mitch’s door without ceremony.

  “Did I do that?” he blurted out, his face white as a sheet.

  Not deliberate then. Elizabeth heaved a sigh of relief. Deliberate would have been much harder to deal with. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  Mitch’s face was white. “I was just watching Mum, thinking how great it would be when I could dry the washing for her.” Mitch twisted his hands. “I did shift my perception, just to see if I could see the particles from this far, but you said that I could.” His voice was defensive. “I didn’t try to move them. It was pretty hard to see them even, at this distance.”

  She had said he could. She took full responsibility for this.

  At least it was a problem she could solve.

  Elizabeth took a deep breath, and gave a wry grin, hoping to soothe Mitch’s guilt and nerves. “I did say you could shift your perception,” she agreed. “It didn’t occur to me that you might use your magic without being aware of it, but it should have. This was my fault, not yours. You’d better wait a few more days before doing anything on your own, huh?”

  Mitch’s nod was immediate. “I’m not going to do anything again unless you’re here,” he said with feeling.

  Elizabeth was relieved it hadn’t been outright disobedience. Inexperience was easier to work with. Even if it did mean Gemma had a point. She decided, reluctantly, that she would have to stay. At least for a while.

  “We’ll have another lesson this afternoon,” she told Mitch. “Until then, don’t even shift your perception.”

  Mitch nodded.

  Elizabeth took one, last look at him, but the fear on his face was real. She didn’t think he’d try anything even remotely risky again. Not in the time it took her to settle Gemma anyway.

  Unfortunately, this would only increase his mother’s fear. She needed to deal with that before they moved on.

  Elizabeth returned downstairs more slowly. She was not looking forward to this conversation. The only way she could think of to calm Gemma was to tell her far more of her past than she had intended or wanted.

  The reality was, Gemma’s fear wasn’t of her son, it was of him losing control. And since it was her fault, Elizabeth was the only one who could fix it.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the living room where Gemma sat on a green lounge, twisting her hands.

  She looked up as Elizabeth entered. “Was it him?”

  “It appears so,” Elizabeth admitted. “It wasn’t his fault though. I said he could practice, I just didn’t expect him to lose control so easily. I’ll have to intensify his training.”

  As she’d expected, that didn’t soothe the expression on Gemma’s face any. “Is this normal?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  Elizabeth nodded brusquely. “Of course it’s normal. He has strong magical potential, and as yet he doesn’t know how to control it. But he will. I’ll teach him.”

  Gemma started to nod, but her eyes filled with tears, twisting Elizabeth’s heart.

  If she had known, all those years ago, that her outburst would affect Gemma so much, could she have prevented it? It was easy to imagine it now, from a place of years of training and control. Training and control she hadn’t had then.

  Elizabeth heaved an internal sigh. She could no more have prevented it than Mitch could have prevented setting the clothes on fire.

  She couldn’t go back and change the past. She couldn’t even imagine any way it could have been different. This pain was hers to live with.

  Her throat ached from unshed tears. She hadn’t been able to help Gemma then. But maybe she could now.

  That didn’t mean she was planning on having a part in their lives. But maybe she could leave them in a better place than when she’d arrived.

  Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth said, “Would
it help if I stayed until he can control his magic completely?”

  The relief in Gemma’s eyes was immediate. She nodded quickly, then swiped at her tears with a handkerchief. It was obviously the solution she was hoping for.

  Elizabeth might have felt manipulated, except that this was Gemma, her daughter.

  If it weren’t for the fact that the fear was entirely her fault, she might still.

  “I’m sorry, Gemma,” she said involuntarily.

  Gemma’s eyes flew to hers, and Elizabeth immediately regretted the words. Gemma knew exactly what she meant. How could she not?

  She hadn’t intended to start this conversation.

  But the effect it had on the expression on Gemma’s face, a softening and understanding, might just have been worth it. “You know exactly what it’s like to lose control like that, don’t you?” she said quietly.

  Elizabeth felt herself nodding, almost involuntarily. Oh she knew what it felt like all right. Her gut twisted at the memory that was as clear as if it had been yesterday.

  “It seemed surreal that I could have been causing the things that were happening,” she said. “It didn’t make sense with what we knew of the world then. I didn’t know what was going on.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Gemma asked quietly.

  Elizabeth winced. She remembered how her husband, George, had looked at her, when she’d tried to tell him. Pity, concern, fear.

  It had only made it worse.

  She didn’t blame him. If the situation had been reversed, she’d have reacted the same. No one had heard of magic then. There had been no Dome, no mages, no hint that the world as they knew it was about to change.

  She understood why he hadn’t believed her, could even sympathise with his reaction now, but at the time…

  “I did,” she said quietly. “I tried to tell George. He didn’t believe me. I don’t blame him. I couldn’t even do it deliberately. Whenever I tried to show him, nothing happened. He thought I was going mad. I did too.”

  “What, you could only throw magic around when you were angry?” Gemma threw back at her.

  Elizabeth tried to tell herself that Gemma’s strong reaction was good. That it would help her daughter to get these emotions out. She tried not to take it personally.