Another day, another trip to the Illusion Coven. Emira had already gone with Jen to a job that morning, where they again aided the oracle coven. This time it was with setting up a long term solution for providing fog during fortune readings. After eating lunch, they had a different job on the schedule.
When they got back to the coven, Emira met with Jen in her office. They talked briefly about the job for the afternoon. It was going to be different than usual.
Jen said she had received a job request, which she had to go talk to the coven leader about before they could leave. She instructed Emira to wait for her in the lobby and that she'd be there soon.
This led to Emira lurking in the lobby, with only the secretary for company. After a few minutes of silent waiting, she went over to speak with him; she had a question he could probably answer.
"Hey, can I ask you something?" Emira led with that, not wanting to interrupt if he was busy. He'd been writing something in a notebook.
The secretary looked up with his usual professional smile, still holding his pen as he replied. "Of course, what can I help you with?"
"How often do coven witches get job requests?" Since Jen got one today, the topic was a point of curiosity for Emira.
"An excellent question." The secretary put down his pen, then brought his hands together. "Only the top performing coven members get job requests, including Jennifer." The coven leader did say that Jen was one of their best witches, though Emira hadn't seen much evidence of that yet. Of course, she hadn't been watching carefully. "She receives a few requests a month from her fans."
"She has fans?" Emira had trouble believing that witches who did contract work could build a fan base. It didn't seem like a consistent way to get attention.
"Oh yes, quite a few of them." The secretary nodded a few times, insistently. "She gets requests for performance magic; the other covens love her."
That was interesting. The jobs Emira had gone on with Jen so far were all performance jobs, but they hadn't been requests. It seemed like the coven assigned her jobs that played to her strengths, or at least put her in roles that she was known for.
Before Emira had a chance to respond, the employee door opened and Jen emerged. She was carrying her palisman staff.
"Ready to go?" Jen asked as she neared Emira and the secretary.
"Yup." Emira stepped back from the desk. "Thanks for answering." She said to the secretary. He waved in return.
Jen continued past them and Emira turned to follow. The went outside and mounted the palisman staff, setting off to fly to the job.
"We're headed to an Abomination Coven event." Jen started to brief her on the job as they took off. Emira had a sinking feeling in her gut when she heard it was the Abomination Coven. "It's a request for fireworks." Jen turned her head to look back at Emira. "I was supposed to go alone, but how can you shadow me without actually shadowing me?" Jen laughed at her own statement, shaking her head. "No way. Besides, I think you'll like the spell I've prepared."
So Emira almost got out of having to attend today. She would've greatly enjoyed not having to go, especially with the chance that her mother would be there, but it wasn't going to benefit her to complain. If it hadn't been the Abomination Coven, Emira would've appreciated Jen bringing her.
Bonesborough passed by below them as they flew overhead. So far they didn't show any sign of descending.
"Where is it?" Emira asked, trying not to give any of her unease away.
"It's outdoors, at a field on the other side of town." Jen pointed off to right, designating something in the distance. Made sense that fireworks would be outside. "We'll be there in a few minutes."
"Okay." Emira looked to see if she could spot their destination, but it wasn't visible yet.
That changed after a few minutes, as they left the edge of Bonesborough. They passed over a small forest. Emira could see a large number of what looked to be tables, all set up in a large field. There were witches moving around between them and sitting at them. On one side of the field, a large stage like structure was set up.
On the stage, easily identifiable to Emira even from this distance, was the light green hair belonging to Odalia Blight. Her mother, as she suspected, was leading this event. What were the odds that Emira could avoid being spotted by her? Slim to none, she suspected.
Jen brought the staff down on the edge of the field, where they hopped off onto the ground. Emira's legs were getting better at the transition, since she was flying more often.
Up on stage, Emira's mother was testing a magic microphone. There was a flurry of activity around the field, with some seats at the tables already filled. More witches were arriving, filing into their seats.
A witch on the ground level, one who seemed to be in a hurry, approached the pair. "Jennifer, thank you so much for accepting our request." She was carrying a clipboard, following the trend in previous covens.
"I am honored to fulfill your request." Jen said diplomatically.
"I see you brought Ms. Blight with you as well. We'll set up an extra chair for her." She waved another witch over and repeated the last part as a command.
"Wonderful." Jen smiled sincerely. Emira didn't agree that it was wonderful.
"The fireworks are after the last speech; I'll signal when it's time." The witch pointed to one of the nearby tables. A few witches were already seated there. "Your seats are at that table. The ceremony will be starting soon."
She scurried away without waiting for a response, going to help a witch on the other side of the field.
Jen and Emira walked over to the assigned table, where a different witch was quickly adding another chair. That was likely to accommodate Emira's late attendance. The two sat down, settling in to wait for the event to start.
Jen took a piece of paper out of her pocket, and had laid flat on the table while they waited. Emira glanced over at it, curious, but couldn't see it well while maintaining discretion. It looked like some kind of spell schematics. Jen was adding something with a pen, muttering to herself as she did, before scratching another part out.
Many of the witches at the table were staring at Emira, likely recognizing her as the coven head's daughter. She ignored them; she was here as part of the Illusion Coven today, not Odalia's daughter.
They had to wait a while, but the event soon started. Her mother took the stage to introduce the event. It turned out this was to commemorate the abomination wrestling season, which had just ended that week. Amity had mentioned going to see final match.
After her mother, a few others came up to speak. Emira was quite bored as they droned on about the good sportsmanship shown, the new strategies used, and the success of the new champion.
Jen didn't look bored; she was still engrossed in her paper.
After a long hour of speeches and cheers, it was finally time for Jen to go on. Emira's mother was speaking again, wrapping up the event. Up near the stage, the witch who assigned them the table flashed a thumbs up. Jen rose from her seat, walking out to an open portion of the field without a word.
Emira almost didn't watch. She hadn't watched yet, not in the whole week since they met. Things were different today though. Jen brought her along when she didn't have to, made an exception for her, just so she could see this magic. She wasn't so ungrateful not to recognize that.
Today, Emira watched.
Jen stopped out in a large empty spot of the field, waiting for exactly the right moment to begin. When Emira's mother finished her speech, that was her cue.
She started casting spells, drawing large spell circles quickly. So quickly Emira couldn't keep track of the spells. She could only watch the effects as balls of fire shot into the sky.
When they reached above the crowd's heads, Jen added another spell, or set of spells Emira couldn't tell, that caused them to explode in a burst of color.
It was beautiful, amazing. Emira's jaw dropped at the display; she had never seen anything like it before. It wasn't just the visuals that impressed her, but the spell work too. Each step of the fireworks had different spells weaved in, ones that flowed fluidly to the next set without so much as a waver.
Each step also had far more layers than Emira could maintain at a time. Jen seemed to cast more than one of them with each spell circle; Emira wasn't sure how she did that. The technique was crazy, not even her illusion teacher had done that.
Emira watched the display with wide eyes, mind racing.
On the other side of the field, having come down from the stage to enjoy the show, her mother was watching as well. But she wasn't watching the fireworks, no, she was watching her eldest daughter.
Emira didn't notice, as she was engrossed in the magic show.
As the last fireworks exploded in the sky, Emira thought she had underestimated Jen. After the coven leader had been so disappointing, she had dismissed Jen as being the same. How wrong she had been, she'd been missing out.
She wondered if she could cast a simplified version of the spell. There were a few layers in the explosion part that Emira recognized. The base spell would be the toughest individual part, but then layering it all with the right timing would be even harder.
Now she knew why Jen had that piece of paper.
After the last spell fizzled out, the watching crowd burst out cheering. Emira joined them in clapping loudly. Jen took a bow, and then walked back towards the table as the applause dwindled.
"What do you think?" Jen asked, a small smile on her face.
Emira felt like she had to pick her jaw up off the table to respond. "Amazing."
Jen shook her head as she sat back down at the table, but she did look pleased. "All in a day's work." She said, putting her hands together on the table.
Emira disagreed, but didn't pursue the topic.
Soon the pair flew away from the event, heading back towards the coven.
While they flew, Emira ran through the different layers of the spell in her mind, trying to pinpoint each one and how they fit together.
She just had to try the spell.