But I often worry. If that’s true, then why do I see these things?
“You should be more careful with your toys,” I gently scold the boys as I shake off the lingering image of the tree and set the figure down.
The sound of the boys’ grand battles recedes into the distance as I near the small cottage I share with Uncle Edwin and my two brothers. I peer across the broad field toward our horse stables and give a start.
A large, elegant carriage is parked there. The crest of the Mage Council, Gardneria’s highest level of government, is artfully painted on its side—a golden M styled with graceful, looping calligraphy.
Four military guards, real-life versions of Emmet and Brennan’s toys, sit eating some food. They’re strapping soldiers, dressed in black tunics with silver spheres marking their chests, with wands and swords at their sides.
It has to be my aunt’s carriage—it can’t possibly be anyone else’s. My aunt is a member of our ruling High Mage Council, and she always travels with an armed entourage.
A rush of excitement flashes through me, and I quicken my pace, wondering what on all of Erthia could have possibly brought my powerful aunt to remote Halfix, of all places.
I haven’t seen her since I was five years old.
*
We lived near her back then, in Valgard, Gardneria’s bustling port city and capital. But we hardly ever saw her.
One day, clear out of the blue, my aunt appeared in the front room of my uncle’s violin shop.
“Have you had the children wandtested?” she inquired, her tone light, but her eyes sharp as ice.
I remember how I tried to hide behind Uncle Edwin, clinging to his tunic, mesmerized by the elegant creature before me.
“Of course, Vyvian,” my uncle haltingly answered his sister. “Several times over.”
I looked up at my uncle with confused surprise. I had no memory of being wandtested, even though I knew that all Gardnerian children were.
“And what did you find?” she asked probingly.
“Rafe and Elloren are powerless,” he told her as he shifted slightly, cutting off my view of Aunt Vyvian, casting me in shadows. “But Trystan. The boy has some magic in him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Vyvian, quite.”
And that was when she began to visit with us.
Soon after, my uncle unexpectedly soured on city life. Without warning, he whisked my brothers and me away to where we now live. In tiny Halfix. At the very northeastern edge of Gardneria.
Right in the middle of nowhere.
*
As I round the corner of our cottage, I hear the sound of my name through the kitchen window and skid to a stop.
“Elloren is not a child anymore, Edwin.” My aunt’s voice drifts out.
I set my basket of vegetables and herbs on the ground and crouch low.
“She is too young for wandfasting,” comes my uncle’s attempt at a firm reply, a tremor of nervousness in his voice.
Wandfasting? My heart speeds up. I know that most Gardnerian girls my age are already wandfasted—magically bound to young men for life. But we’re so isolated here, surrounded by the mountains. The only girl I know who’s been fasted is Sage, and she’s up and disappeared.
“Seventeen is the traditional age.” My aunt sounds slightly exasperated.
“I don’t care if it’s the traditional age,” my uncle persists, his tone gaining confidence. “It’s still too young. She can’t possibly know what she wants at this age. She’s seen nothing of the world...”
“Because you let her see nothing of it.”
My uncle makes a sound of protest but my aunt cuts him off. “No, Edwin. What happened to Sage Gaffney should be a wake-up call for all of us. Let me take Elloren under my wing. I’ll introduce her to all the best young men. And after she is safely fasted to one of them, I’ll apprentice her with the Mage Council. You must start to take her future seriously.”
“I do take her future seriously, Vyvian, but she is still much too young to have it decided for her.”
“Edwin.” There’s a note of challenge in my aunt’s smooth voice. “You will force me to take matters into my own hands.”
“You forget, Vyvian,” my uncle counters, “that I am the eldest male of the family, and as such, I have the final say on all matters concerning Elloren, and when I am gone, it will be Rafe, not you, who will have the final say.”
My eyebrows fly up at this. I can tell my uncle is treading on thin ice if he has decided to resort to this argument—an argument I know he doesn’t actually agree with. He’s always grousing about how unfair the Gardnerian power structure is toward women, and he’s right. Few Gardnerian women have wand magic, my powerful grandmother being a rare exception. Almost all of our powerful Mages are men, our magic passing more easily along male lines. This makes our men the rulers in the home and over the land.
But Uncle Edwin thinks our people take this all too far: no wands for women, save with Council approval; ultimate control of a family always given to the eldest male; and our highest position in government, the office of High Mage, can only be held by a man. And then there’s my uncle’s biggest issue by far—the wandfast-binding of our women at increasingly younger ages.
“You will not be able to shelter her forever,” my aunt insists. “What will happen when you are gone someday, and all the suitable men have already been wandfasted?”
“What will happen is that she will have the means to make her own way in the world.”
My aunt laughs at this. Even her laugh is graceful. It makes me think of a pretty waterfall. I wish I could laugh like that. “And how, exactly, would she ‘make her own way in the world’?”
“I’ve decided to send her to University.”
I involuntarily suck in as much air as I can and hold it there, not able to breathe, too shocked to move. The pause in their conversation tells me that my aunt is probably having the same reaction.
Verpax University. With my brothers. In another country altogether. A dream I never imagined could actually come true.
“Send her there for what?” my aunt asks, horrified.
“To learn the apothecary trade.”
A giddy, stunned joy wells up inside me. I’ve been begging Uncle Edwin for years to send me. Hungry for something more than our small library and homegrown herbs. Passionately envious of Trystan and Rafe, who get to study there.
Verpax University. In Verpacia’s bustling capital city. With its apothecary laboratories and greenhouses. The fabled Gardnerian Athenaeum overflowing with books. Apothecary materials streaming into Verpacia’s markets from East and West, the country a central trade route.
My mind spins with the exciting possibilities.
“Oh, come now, Vyvian,” my uncle reasons. “Don’t look so put out. The apothecary sciences are a respectable trade for women, and it suits Elloren’s quiet, bookish nature more than the Mage Council ever could. Elloren loves her gardens, making medicines and so forth. She’s quite good at it.”
An uncomfortable silence ensues.
“You have left me with no alternative but to take a firm stand on this,” my aunt says, her voice gone low and hard. “You realize that I cannot put one guilder toward Elloren’s University tithe while she is unfasted.”
“I expected as much,” my uncle states coolly. “Which is why I have arranged for Elloren to pay her tithe through kitchen labor.”
“This is unheard of!” my aunt exclaims. Her voice turns tight and angry. “You’ve raised these children like they’re Keltic peasants,” she snipes, “and frankly, Edwin, it’s disgraceful. You’ve forgotten who we are. I have never heard of a Gardnerian girl, especially one of Elloren’s standing, from such a distinguished family, laboring in a kitchen. That’s work for Urisk, for Kelts, not for a girl such as Elloren. Her peers at University will be shocked.”
I jump in fright as something large bumps into me. I turn as my older brother, Rafe, plops down by my side, grinning widely.