Chapter Thirty Five

The power I had afforded me a much larger range. Where before I had been able to draw a boundary of my property in one iteration of the incantation, I was now able to stretch that range to something as big as the Lockwood Estate. But the fact that I was thinking like this was a major inhibition on my part.

I'd liked the aspect of being best in defensive magic because it would mean I would not be in the thick of it all, but more times than not when I had to build a boundary I had to be in front of that range, picturing its borders and drawing the lines in my mind. Why though did I have to do that? I felt almost like an idiot for not having made the connection sooner. There was a way to spell things from a distance. Tracking spells seemed to work in this respect and I had used a similar method when I had been attacked: The man had been hiding, out of the range of my eyes and thus the Pain Infliction spell wouldn't affect him. But in the spur of the moment fuelled by the need for survival I had used the girl's connection to him and run the spell through it.

Similar to how Bonnie had summoned a storm from a news report.

Using sympathetic magic or representative magic as was the case—I'd been sifting through Wikipedia on magic and the types which existed in the world—I could maybe use a map and to build a boundary around a house I was not standing in front of. In theory is should work, I was sure about this. But there was the small thing of abstracts. Sympathetic magic, which was about bonds and links, was linked to the element of wind or air and boundaries were linked with the earth.

I wasn't sure how yet, but I got the feeling that using counter elements would have the strong likelihood of creating some large loophole that would make the spell as easy to break as it had been to create.

Which was the reason I had Jared looking over my notes on the idea. Andrew didn't like him being here but Jared was a teenager just starting to be in his rebellious phase, my words had made an effect. I still wasn't sure whether I'm meant to or not. Remembering the conversation, I'd made a point not to say it directly but I'd essentially caused Jared to question what his parent-figure told him to do or not do.

I was getting lost in my schemes and I didn't trust to keep them in written form. My memory wasn't the best. But thinking in broad terms I would be able to piece together most things I've said and done. It helped that my mind was the only place I trusted the information couldn't be accessed.

My words to Jared and the fact that we thought alike, save that his mind worked much faster than mine and without the help of knowing the future, had caused him to speak against his brother barring him from coming here.

"It could work," he said. "I mean the rules of it are sound but there are a few problems. First the most obvious. This piece of paper would the weak link in everything. Once someone got their hands on it, they'd just have to destroy it and the spell with it."

"Like voodoo dolls," I said.

He nodded. "Then there's the fact that this paper wouldn't be able to hold a spell intact. You'll be using a lot of power on something that's, first of all, paper thin not leaving much room for the paper to work. Then there would be issues of quality and the tree used to make the paper. I think trees less that common would hold a lot more power and thus you could create a larger boundary using it or a tree with some ties to magic."

"I'll make a note to Google trees made for making paper," I said with a sigh. There was nothing I hated more than having to research; having to sift through a load of data for a few measly scraps of information that might be useful.

"There might be something in Druidic folktales," Jared noted. "Trouble is, it's hard trying to find out which is myth and with is truth."

"Tell me about it," I muttered. "My grandmother told me there might be legit spells on the internet. Maybe witches trying to leverage power. Get amateur witches with something small, wanting something big and getting them to join their coven in exchange for that something big. Anyway I tried searching for spells. Even small spells that I didn't know and weren't in my family's set of grimoires but the amount of nonsense on there is amazing. Wasted three days before I got bored with it all."

"There was bound to be something useful, though," said Jared. "Long run. Increase your spell range."

I shrugged. "There's stuff to deal with, now, so I can't afford to put my hopes on that chance. How has your stay been in Mystic Falls, anyway. I'd thought with what happened your brother would have carted the both of you out of town."

"He tried," said Jared. "But I like this. All of this. For the longest time I had to wait for Andrew to be taught a spell, then he'd judge whether I was ready or not to learn it before he taught it to me. That's if he had time. When work at university didn't swamp him. But right here and now. I don't have the same restrictions. I'm able to make the advances I want to make and there's someone who's at least two steps behind me instead of five."

"Not sure whether to take that as a compliment," I said.

"It is," said Jared. "More than you know. Anyway I've talked to the principle of your school. It helps that he's in the know and willing to smooth things over for a little magic perk—he wants a boundary built around his house—any our parents left us enough money that we'd be able to rent a place and I'd be able to get a part time job or use the scheme with the whole vampires thing to make some money."

"That would be dangerous," I told him. "Particularly here. You'd be inviting vampires with the present climates. It would leave a lot of people uncomfortable."

"Which is the reason I'm telling you this," said Jared. "You have a measure of influence and that ability of yours would mean could find some way of making it work."

"You're thinking we become business partners?"

Jared shrugged. "I don't buy into the whole thing about vampires being mindless abominations bent on destruction. Mystic Falls has shown differently. There would need to be a screening process, which might be easy with your ability, before we sold them the rings."

"You're speaking as though you know the spell," I said. It wasn't as easy as that and my mind was already trying to draw up ways to counteract this large flaw in the ability I had named for myself. Jeremy had started to see through the flaws and it wouldn't be too long before someone else find it out and before long my ability would be useless.

"I don't," said Jared. "But I have something that you want." I raised a brown. "Me," he said sounding a bit annoyed.

"You?"

"Yeah. You said before that you wanted my brother and I to join your coven. He didn't want it but if I join, if we're bound together to share our power, then it wouldn't be too long before he joined too."

"I don't know how I should feel about you manipulating your brother like that," I said.

Jared shook his head. "I'm not manipulating Andrew, I just know him. I can predict him. I know how he would act in accordance to my actions. This is solely for my benefit. I want to learn about magic without restrictions. I want to stretch my abilities further than has ever been done before. I want to create something epic. Right now, with all I've seen, you're the closest I can come to that without having to wait until I'm at least eighteen."

I was quiet for a long time, thinking the matter over, letting my mind have free reign on the threads it decided to move along. I liked Jared. He was smart and creative and he picked magic up far easier than I could, but that might have something to do with his elemental affinity. I wanted someone like that in my coven because he served long term usefulness.

There was the problem of Andrew. He didn't like me since making the comment, so much so that his and Bonnie's budding relationship had suffered. He was antsy and wanted to leave, something I didn't fault him for because Mystic Falls was dangerous right now. If I allowed his brother an avenue to stay here, then he'd go from not liking me to loathing me.

Bad in the long term truth be told because he was older, smarter and more powerful. He could usurp power within the coven when it became large enough and making him hate me would mean he would be more inclined to do so.

Even with that in mind though, I needed a coven. I didn't forget that one which had a limit to how much power they could channel on their own, a coven would afford a way of spreading out that power, but making sure it was there when I needed it. Right now there weren't many witches willing to join the coven, or be ruled by what they would see as a boy.

Pros and cons considered, right now I needed numbers and Jared was offering a handy way of getting them.

"Sure," I said, finally coming to a decision. "But first we'll have to talk to Bonnie. See what she thinks about starting a coven."

Jared grinned. "So, does this mean I'll get to look at your grimoires?" he said. "I've never really seen one except Andrew's journal, and much thought I love my brother, his mind doesn't make much sense."

"All things I want discuss with my sister," I told him. "Forming a coven is sort of a big deal. Especially with the message it will send out to other covens in the area. Bonnie's not big on making aggressive statement and after the whole channelling ancestors thing, I need to tread lightly in what I do without her input."

Jared frowned at that and I could see he didn't entirely understand my reasoning but he just shrugged.

"What are you doing for the rest of the day?" I asked him.

"Nothing. Chill maybe. Watch TV. Do you have something in mind?"

"How much do you know about the Other Side?"

"Not much save its where dead supernatural creatures go," he said. "Sounds like some giant boundary spell all things considered, but it's naturally occurring right? So I might be off on that."

I shook my head. "A witch created it," I said and the look Jared shot me was of unfeigned disbelief. He was probably running the numbers in his mind, how much power it would take to build something that large, the mental strain one would have to put one with to make it stretch on a worldwide level.

"That's impossible," he said. "Something that big…"

"I know," I said, a large grin on me. "But it's true and I want to make something like the Other Side. An alternate dimension of sorts."

Jared was shaking his head. "Not saying I entirely believe, because what you've just told me is really impossible," he said. "But how would you even go about something like that?"

"I have a starting point," I said. I grabbed my journal and flipped my journal over until it turned to the section of Lucy's boundary spell. Jared took the journal and looked it over. "That would be our starting point. That spell works on an abstract level, but it shows that alternate dimensions can be created."

"So you want to make it distinct," said Jared. "So that people on other sides of the metaphorical veil can't interact." I nodded. "The uses to something like this would be incredible. It would help out with the whole prison thing this town is doing. Maybe a prison dimension."

"Amongst other things," I said. "But my primary reason was for creating Hogwarts." Jared stopped, looking at me. "We both feel the same way. There's no real reason why we have to go to school because at the end of it all we'll be more entrenched in the magic world that in the muggle, for lack of a better term. Learning about magic could open up avenues towards making money. We could find ways in which we could function without having to resort to menial muggle labour."

"Dude," said Jared, interrupting me. "You had me at Hogwarts." It was the first time I'd seen him showing an outward display of emotion and he was grinning like a loon. "I'm going to be a Founder," he said, slowly, his grin stretching further.

I couldn't help but feel that J.K. Rowling had truly messed up the new generation of witches. It was maybe true that there were other stories with boarding schools with magical students, the Percy Jackson series came to mind, but none had made an impact such as the Potter-verse to shape a minimum of three generations. It made me think that maybe my school idea would be easier to reach with how almost everyone wanted the sort of atmosphere in those books—barring almost being killed on a yearly basis.

We started talking, breaking down the spell and the effects Lucy's spell had on both a magical and physics level. Our conversation flowed for the most part we were talking about how the aspects of magic would interact but as we got to the physics of it things started getting awkward. I knew the basics stuff and so did he but when we were forced to start thinking about how it would work with the same photon of light would have to illuminate two different dimension we decided that perhaps building this thing would have to wait until we got some more knowledgeable in the subject before we got to work.

My phone buzzed through the our fervent discussion, a text from Jeremy that Mason Lockwood had come back to town and that the man was a werewolf. I couldn't help thinking how the man would deal with his nephew being a vampire. Vampires and werewolves didn't have the best of relationships in the first place but that wouldn't have been evident to Mr Lockwood who didn't know about the wolf culture; to Mason all this would be different.

I was a little curious about the conversation but that curiosity would have to abate because there was no appropriate way to channel it. I couldn't help but feel curious though about what had caused him to come back into town. There was always a reason why something happened and in a fictional sense that something often coincided with either the plot of the week or the greater plot arc.

Perhaps it was a little paranoia on my part but paranoia was something that could save my life.

"Question," I said. Jared looked up, he'd been watching the TV with the corner of his eye while reading some of the notes we'd made. "How do we fight?"

"I don't understand the question," he said.

"How do we fight?" I asked again. "When I was attacked I remember riding mainly on instinct, not thinking things through, but right now I can't think of a way I might fight one of my own kind."

"Witches don't normally fight each other," said Jared. "But…I'm guessing offensive spells?" He was quiet for a long time, his expression far off before he gave another shrug. "I've honestly never thought about it. I don't even know that many offensive spells and the one I do know has the potential to kill a regular person, big no-no." He ran a hand through his head. "You thinking about attacking a coven?"

I shook my head. "That's too dangerous. The witch I was able to bind was weak," I told him, "or at least that's what Lucy told me. But she could fight. She redirected my spells and she had these small stones she threw that did something to me. All the threads I had running were viciously cut. Emphasise of the viciously. Have you heard anything about that?"

Jared shook his head. "I'm knowledgeable sure, but that's mainly because I worked at it than having seen stuff. I've not really seen much and no one except you and your sister are willing to tell us much."

"Right," I said. I sat back, reminding myself that smart as Jared was, he was still a kid and everything around here was dangerous enough that it wasn't the smartest option getting him involved. "Full disclosure. The witches stabbed me with a cursed blade. It bit into my bone and started to corrode. I drink vampire blood now to slowly gain back the bone until it fixed. That will be a month, give or take."

"Hectic," he said, with far less feart than I had been going for.

"Yeah and the one who got me wasn't even a witch, just normal."

"This is you trying to scare me away isn't it?" he said after a moment.

"This is me trying to show you that what you want might get dangerous…not might," I amended, "will. I'm a little scare that you might suffer for any affiliation you have with me."

"I've thought about this," he said, "considered everything I've heard, even that you might go crazy with power lust and I'm willing to take the risk. I think it's worth adding that the possibility of power lust excites me too. Power is something reached through ingenuity and I'm all about that."

I shrugged. "You're your own person. You'll do what you like."

He smiled a little at that and I couldn't help but feel like I was manipulating him.