Casey perched on a stone wall, cross-legged, her hands practicing the shapes of a magic spell to the lyrics of Vance Joy's Riptide. Below her in one of Kamar-Taj's many courtyards, people were practicing the sling ring portal spell. Her own sling ring was tucked away in her pocket.
So far, she could often a portal to a janitor's closet in her school and that was about as far as she could go. From Greenwich Village to Midtown. Not exactly something to be proud about, but it was better than not being able to portal at all. To get to Kamar-Taj, she had used the permanent portal that led into the library, and for now, that was her mode of transportation back and forth.
Back home in New York, things were starting to warm up as winter folded into spring. Her life outside of magic was folding into nothing. Softball tryouts were soon, but she probably wasn't even going to attempt it.
Normally it would've taken up all her time, getting ready for the spring season, but studying magic, sparring, visiting Kamar-Taj, keeping up with schoolwork, attempting to learn cooking, and trying to not tear a hole in the universe by accident was taking up her whole life.
Her friends had basically stopped trying to get her to hang out. The fact that she always said she was busy or had other plans or couldn't make it led to that. She had even stopped posting that often on social media, because really, what was the point? At least she could still binge-watch Netflix on occasion. Sometimes she and Stephen even binge-watched the same show together; he always critiqued the show's background music while she pointed out plot holes and stiff dialogue.
They had also started challenging each other to impromptu rounds of music trivia lately. She had gotten tired of him rattling off song titles and the years the songs came out whenever older music played on a show or on Pandora or Spotify, so she had started hijacking the Bluetooth and shuffling more recent stuff. That, and sometimes she would throw in things from the 40s, declaring that 'well Captain America would know it!' He had retaliated by occasionally blasting her with music and then demanding she look up the title if she didn't know it off the top of her head. It was fun, in a dorky way.
"Are you practicing being a bird?"
"Is that an option?" Casey asked, glancing down over the edge of the wall. Stephen was standing down below, arms crossed over his chest. Above his arms, the Eye of Agamotto hung from around his neck. Some kind of wizard council had decided to give it to him for safekeeping, though Casey didn't understand why it couldn't stay here. Stephen had explained that with the increasingly weird stuff going on, including space invasions, mythical gods, and superhero battles, everyone had agreed it was best to keep the Super Powerful Infinity Stone of Doom with someone who could use it if they needed to. Someone who was willing to use it. Oh, yeah, she knew about those too now, the Infinity Stones. There were five other ones, but this was the wizardy one. Though the Reality Stone really sounded more like their speed.
"Did you want to transform into animals? Because that's not my forte," Stephen said. He gestured for her to come down, which she reluctantly did, skipping down a few stones that were jutting out from the wall. All the training had made her more athletic, she had to admit.
"We already decided that you're Dumbledore, not McGonagall."
"You decided. That, and that I have a, what was it you called it? A Snape Cape?"
"Yep. Though Cloak is way more colorful and awesome, aren't you?" She addressed the cloak directly, and it waved toward her, the edge of it snapping at her affectionately.
The two of them headed back toward the portal that would lead them home, taking the long route past courtyards and meditation areas. Sometimes Stephen opened one on his own and occasionally he tried to force her to open one. So far, no luck. He had threatened to leave her on Mt. Everest a couple times, but he hadn't gone through with it. Yet.
"What were you actually working on?" he asked as they headed down a set of stairs, his gait slowing to match hers. His legs were way too long. She wasn't terribly short, but he was so tall.
"Not magic knives."
"Oh? And nothing else magic and pointy…" His tone was doubtful. With good reason.
"Well…"
"I thought so." He sighed. "Casey, not every spell you learn has to be battle based. You're creating a very narrow skill set."
"I know," she shot back, "And I have other spells. Like the banishing spell."
"I don't want you using that one, I told you that," Stephen said, glowering, "You don't know where any of that goes."
Casey rolled her eyes. "It goes elsewhere!"
"Elsewhere is somewhere, and you could be making someone really pissed off by dropping garbage in their home."
The minor banishment spell, good for getting rid of anything smaller than a toaster oven, had been in one of the library books she had borrowed from the library. Came in handy when getting rid of random trash. Now that she came to Kamar Taj on her own, she had gained minor library privileges to choose books for herself. While she normally gravitated toward combat spells, she had picked up a few other books so Stephen would quit griping at her.
"Are you going to accidentally hurt yourself with this new spell?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Casey asked, jumping off the last step. "It'd be an accident. That's the whole thing behind accidentally."
"What spell is it?"
"Sword spell," she said, "And I'm trying to get it to look like a scimitar."
"Why…"
"Because scimitars are cool?"
"Casey—"
"It's not knives!"
"That's not the point," he said, "There's so much more out there, and while what you're focusing on is important, I don't want you to limit yourself."
Casey snorted. "After I survive banishing Arpath, then I'll worry about how to turn tea kettles into turtles."
His hand clocked onto her arm, and he pulled her to a stop. She didn't look up at him at he went ahead and made a point, instead staring ahead. "I'm going to help you with that. Or do it for you. I won't let you do it alone."
She shrugged. "Mhmm."
Stephen sighed and gave her a gentle push forward. "In any case, you willfully ignoring all other forms of magic besides battle magic makes me look like a bad teacher," he said, his stern tone becoming lighter, more wry. "So you're going to have to work on that."
Rolling her eyes, Casey waved a hand through the air. "One out of ten can be not battle oriented. Since I know you're gunning for Sorcerer Supreme and everything."
"Three out of ten." He didn't bother arguing with her about his ambitions. Honestly, she didn't think he'd be the worst at the job, from what she could tell, but there were more experienced people out there. Still…he did want it. And she sort of wanted it for him, too. He wasn't a bad guardian, just an occasionally annoying one.
"Two."
"Three," Stephen said, "I'm being generous, letting you choose so many spells you learn."
They headed into the room that housed the portals to the Sanctums. The one to the London Sanctum was still blocked off since that Sanctum was still being reconstructed, thanks to that Kaecilius guy and his followers destroying it. Casey turned around and walked backwards into their portal, which dropped them into the Sanctum Sanctorum. "You made me learn astral projection. And portals. And telekinesis." She was still wobbly with the telekinesis spells, but she was getting better. Slowly.
"You need a firm foundation," Stephen said, "Which I'm trying to provide despite how bullheaded you are."
"Now there's something I learned from you. Stubbornness."
"You were definitely like that before you got here."
"I gained a level when I met you."
Weak sunlight pressed at the windows. It had been late afternoon in Kathmandu, which meant it was early morning in New York. She and Stephen had gone to Kamar-Taj for a meeting he had and she was pretty sure it was Saturday. Switching time zones so often was messing with her sleep schedule and her grades, but oh well. She was learning to manage.
Casey rubbed at her eyes, the sunlight making her tired. "I'm taking a nap. Maybe you should take one too and forget about arguing with me."
Stephen smirked. "Unlikely. I'll be upstairs in the study if you need me."
She nodded, and they parted ways. The first thing she wanted to do was change into comfy clothes. Now that she was spending time in Kamar Taj, she had started occasionally wearing what she considered to be the basic sorcerer uniform. Wong had given it to her. Hers was a dove grey tunic over billowing charcoal grey pants, plus a woven belt. She had ideas for a more interesting outfit, which seemed crazy. Hadn't she always thought that Stephen's magic clothes were weird? And now she was thinking about designing her own…ugh, it was almost like she was getting used to all the oddness.
Her bedroom on the second floor was looking more lived in. There were books scattered about, dirty clothes, a few odds and ends up on shelves. She had a new bedspread and a pillow shaped like Hedwig, plus non-magic graphic novels on the bedstand. There were a few pictures of her and Gramps and then her and her friends tacked to the wall. It wasn't nearly as bare as it had been when she first moved in.
Casey kicked off her shoes and then noticed something sticking out from the edge of her bed. It was the scuffed toe of an old brown leather boot. One that she definitely didn't own.
Frowning, she bent down and picked up the shoe plus its mate. They were big dark brown leather boots and looked almost pirate-esque, the tops of them folded over, and thick braided cords of leather crisscrossing around the ankle. There was a metal piece near the ankle, a deep pretty gold color with a symbol she didn't recognize stamped into it, and the bottoms were also lined with runes. And yeah, she had never seen them before.
Had someone else been in her room? The only people who ever came to the Sanctum besides her and Stephen were magical types, but the idea of one of them invading her space…it seemed unlikely.
The shoes weren't exactly her style, but she did sort of like them. Casey turned one of them over in her hands and then traced a finger down one of the braids. It was intricate and threaded with tiny bits of copper, and while she still worried about where it came from, she was more curious about what they did. They had to be magic, right? They had appeared in her room, there were runes on them, and well, everything in the Sanctum that was weird besides Stephen's white hair streaks was magic.
If she told Stephen about the boots, he might confiscate them to do research on them or study them. Since they had shown up in her room, she was going to say they were her boots and she could do what she wanted with them.
A tiny voice of reason said she should at least go look in some books herself to see what the boots could do before trying them on, but she already had on socks and the shoes were begging to be worn. It was almost like a tug, not necessarily a need or a desire but an insistent thought that she would be more complete once she had them on. That should've thrown up some red flags, that perhaps she should've been suspicious, but she was already sitting on the floor, pulling the left one on.
Once she had both of them on, they shrunk down, conforming to her feet. They were just the right size, a seven, while they had looked easily like a nine or ten before. Casey stood, mildly unnerved by the shrinky shoes, but a quick step on the back of one heel told her she could get them off again. Man, she was probably being really stupid right now, trying on magic shoes without knowing anything about them. But they were comfortable and sturdy, and as she wiggled her toes, they turned a deep soft gray, the perfect color to match her training outfit.
"Handy," she mumbled admiringly. So she was stupid but stylish.
And that's when she fell through the floor.
