Chapter 145

Valkyrie sat in the car by the pier waiting for Crystal to arrive. She was alone and seething mad. Nadia had disappeared quickly when Valkyrie said she needed some time alone, which was when she phoned her sister and started screaming about the idiotic thing she had done and that she'd been seen by her mortal cousin.

That was when Valkyrie had learnt that Nadia had known Tanith was going to be 'teaching Hagan a lesson'.

Valkyrie hadn't bothered to find Nadia and be mad at her. She'd just hung up the phone, got in the car, and told Crystal to meet her.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by Crystal opening the car door and sitting down. She didn't say anything or look at Valkyrie. Valkyrie drove back to Grimwood Manor.

"Come in," she said when she was parked in the garage. Crystal nodded silently and got out the car, following Valkyrie in. She took her to the snug which was now clean and back to what it was before the party. "What did you see?"

Crystal shook her head. "I don't know. I – I just saw your friend Tanith standing on the side of a wall, and someone else was throwing fire from their hands. I didn't know what to do. It looked like magic! I was going to call the police but then I saw Tanith so I called you…"

"Thank you," Valkyrie said sincerely. "It wouldn't have done any good if you had told the police what you saw."

"What do you mean?" Crystal whispered, eyes big and scared, but also incredibly curious.

Valkyrie had to smile. "They were doing magic Crystal. You were right."

"What?" Crystal said after a long pause.

"They did magic. We can all do magic. I wouldn't be surprised if you could do magic," Valkyrie told her very calmly. In her head, she was going the math. Crystal was not much older than her. She had time to learn and be a sorcerer if she wanted. And very, very suddenly, Valkyrie desperately wanted her cousin to join her in the magical community.

"They did? I could do that?"

"I mean, if you want to. Tanith's power, I guess you could call it, is walking on walls. That other person you saw? They're what we call an Elemental. The magic world is split, for the most part, in two – you can be an Elemental or an Adept. Elementals have the ability to manipulate the elements, that being water, air, fire and earth, just like that man you saw with the fire. The Adepts are pretty free to have essentially any magic they want, but it tends to be small. Like, Tanith can only walk on surfaces, but an Elemental could potentially, theoretically, have as much unlimited ability to manipulate the elements as they want, so long as they train and practice. There are magics people are born with, and branches that change people on a really deep level, but in general those are the big two. Does that make sense?"

"I guess?" She said.

"Good. I learnt to do both because I'm young and can do that. But when you get to about the age we are now, you have a Surge, where you pick just one magic and stick with it for life."

"So you can throw fire too?"

"I could, but I chose to be an Adept," Valkyrie said, not wanting to talk about the whole ordeal that led to her having weird, white power throwing abilities. "So is Tanith, Anton, Dexter and Saracen. We all have different powers from each other. The others, that being Erskine, Skulduggery and Ghastly, are Elementals. Oh, and my friend Solomon is an Adept, on a large branch called Necromancy. And Nadia knows everything still, she hasn't had her Surge."

"But she's older than you?" Crystal asked, trying very hard to take it all in.

"Yes, but things don't always go by who's oldest, you know?" Valkyrie smiled. "Tanith was seventeen when she had her Surge, but I know Dexter was almost twenty-one when he had his, and I was sixteen. It's not really set in stone when it will happen."

She nodded. "And you said I could learn?"

Valkyrie grinned. "Absolutely! I mean, there is a chance you won't be able to do it, but we can try and see, right?"

"Yeah," Crystal grinned. "I can't believe you've known about all this for so long! And you can do it too!"

"Of course," Valkyrie said. "Gordon knew the whole time, you know. He didn't tell me until he died and my brothers were made my guardians and they told me. He had raised me to be their apprentice when I was older but he died and they took me on earlier than expected."

"That's really cool."

"I know. And now I get to show you magic!" Valkyrie said, her excitement making her laugh. "We need to show you how to do Elemental magic first. It's the easiest to begin with and simple to get a good grasp of. Come on!"

Valkyrie got up and her cousin followed her out of the snug and around to the kitchen where her family now was. Tanith, Erskine and Nadia were sat at the table looking at her guiltily and frowned when they saw her happily pulling Crystal behind her.

"Family, this is Crystal, newly educated to the fact magic exists. Crystal, meet your new tutors. Since they decided to go to a mortal town and burn down a building without having any feasible reason for doing so, they will be teaching you all you need to know about magic as quickly as they can so you can choose a cool magic before you Surge."

Crystal nodded, but it seemed the confidence and excitement that came with being told you were suddenly going to learn magic had made her loose-lipped. "I mean, Mr Hagan wasn't very nice to be fair…"

Valkyrie gave her a look and she shut up.

"No, no," Tanith said sweetly. "Please, tell us more."

Crystal looked at Valkyrie and didn't say anything.

"Crystal didn't mean anything by that," Valkyrie told them in a cold voice, stopping all conversation. "I will talk about this later with you, but not yet. First, we need to get Crystal up to speed on names and rules."

"Right," Nadia nodded, trying to get away from Valkyrie's annoyance at her and the other two. "Crystal, a mage's name is really important. The name you're born with is your Chosen name because someone else chose it for you. That name is dangerous because people, other mages, can use it to control you."

"What?" Crystal said, eyes wide again. "How?"

"It takes your free will away and makes you do things you don't want to," Nadia told her softly, getting her to sit with her at the small kitchen table. Valkyrie sat next to her. "For instance: Crystal, give me that mug."

Without meaning to, Crystal picked up the mug and gave it to Nadia, face paling just a bit.

"See?" Nadia kindly told her. "It's really dangerous. To protect ourselves, we have to seal our Chosen name by taking a Taken name. This name will be something that we choose for ourselves and we feel a connection to. Such as, you know your cousin as Stephanie Edgley, because that's her Chosen name. But I can't control her with that name because she sealed it by having a Taken name – Valkyrie Cain."

"Val-cry?" Crystal said, looking at Valkyrie.

"No, Val-ker-ry. Valkyrie Cain. And before Nadia was Nadia Robin, she was Sakina Keena. Her Chosen last name is her mother's Taken name," Valkyrie explained. "Since we can't pass down family names, we tend to give a parents name to our kids to blend in with non-magic folks. Or families with a lot of magic generations like Tanith's have three or two family names for male and female children and just switch them out for each kid."

"Okay," she nodded. "So I need a new name for myself. And it needs to fit me as a person like Valkyrie and Nadia fit you two?"

"Exactly. I imagine your name will be more like Nadia's though," Valkyrie smiled. "I have a more adventurous name. Valkyrie means chooser of soldiers souls, and everyone always says it sounds ominous and since a lot of people think I'm arrogant, I expect my name hasn't helped my image."

"Okay," Crystal said.

"But Nadia is more average, and so is Tanith, Dexter and Solomon. Erskine is a bit more out there, but he can get away with it with non-magic people if he has to. But Skulduggery and Ghastly are personal and right for those two people but they're obviously not so normal," Valkyrie continued to explain. "I'm with them. So if I ever talk to a non-magic person and tell them my name, I go by Valery. Ghastly avoids those conversations and sticks to only interacting with mages, as does Skulduggery although he has a cool magic trick to help him out for other reasons now."

"Alright, so I need a name for myself that isn't weird," Crystal said.

Tanith cut in. "Actually, I think Valkyrie is being a bit confusing." Valkyrie stuck her tongue out. "What she's trying to say is, when you pick your name, think hard because you're stuck with it. If it's a bit out there like Ghastly or Valkyrie, you'll have to be careful who you talk to or how you present yourself. If you don't, you won't have that worry. But that's not to say that Valkyrie doesn't fit Valkyrie perfectly, and that makes covering it up to certain people worth it every time. The name is a summary of who you are inside. Valkyrie gets judged based on what her name is because that's who she is from outside in. Nadia, for example, often gets ignored and pushed around because her name is soft and people assume she's the same. That's not to say Valkyrie isn't the most loving, gentle person with her friends and family, and it isn't to say Nadia can't hold her own in a tough spot. Does that make sense?"

Crystal nodded thoughtfully. "I want a name that means me even if it's weird, and I'll know if it's okay to have a weird name based on how willing I am to have to hide it regularly."

"In a nutshell," Tanith grinned.

"Do I get a middle name too?"

"Most people don't," Tanith shrugged. "But you can have one if you want. It's your name, you choose. Some people take a single name, rather than a first and last."

Crystal nodded.

"Anyway, choosing a name takes time, I was fifteen when I decided on mine and I didn't tell anyone for a long time. And I bet the others will want to chip in their two cents in too," Tanith said. "No one will make you do anything with your Chosen name from now onwards in this house, so you don't need to panic. Now come on, let's go show you some magic."

.*****.

"What happened?" Valkyrie quietly asked Tanith. Crystal, Solomon and Erskine were currently showing Crystal magical theory. Or rather, Solomon was while Erskine was excitedly waiting for Crystal to pick it up so they could fireball fight. They'd tried telling him that wasn't going to happen but he was so excited waiting they just gave up after a while.

Tanith sighed. "We had to do something."

"Really?" Valkyrie asked, keeping her voice low. "Why did you choose to do… this?"

"To be fair, it was meant to be just wrecking his property," Tanith admitted. "But then we looked around and got Corrival to ask around in the Sanctuary for an online check and it was pretty bad Val. I know you don't want to talk about it, which is why we didn't talk about it, but it's obvious something happened. And the online stuff was disturbing. Since our hands are tied for legally punishing him, we thought we'd do something personal."

"It was stupid." Tanith didn't say anything and their silence dragged. "What did you do to Hagan?"

Tanith was quiet for a long moment. "He wasn't meant to be there."

"Tanith–"

"His timetable said he would be closed that day," Tanith whispered quickly. "It's a Wednesday, not a holiday, we assumed he was gone on business. That's why we went today. We broke in the back and had already started the fires when he came out of a hatch in the floor."

Valkyrie took a shallow breath and nodded. She felt her head get light and didn't talk out of fear of letting on her emotions connected to that hatch in the floor.

Tanith looked at her closely but didn't change her expression. Valkyrie was thankful. "We didn't mean to get him in the crossfire, but we also didn't want to risk exposure. Or that's what we're going with."

"Right."

"You weren't even meant to know this happened until you went and visited your cousin in Haggard," Tanith continued.

"Right," Valkyrie said shortly.

"But he'd done some pretty horrid things," Tanith finished.

"So you killed him."

Tanith said nothing.

"Right," Valkyrie said once more and went to walk away.

"Val," Tanith said properly, touching her arm. "This was meant to be us punishing him for our personal fun, not killing him for revenge. Do you understand? A person can't hurt as many people as he has before someone like me comes around. Alright?"

"Yeah," she said, keeping her head down.

"Look at me."

"I don't want to."

Tanith silently let her go but Valkyrie didn't leave.

"I didn't want this to become a thing," she muttered. "The Elder's are going to go mad when they find out you killed someone."

"They won't," Tanith reassured her. "He died of the fumes of the fire after getting caught in his own shop fire. Firefighters will find him and his stash of personal belongings down the hatch. Even if they suspect someone helped the fires along, there's no connection to us and no one will put any effort into helping someone like him. End of."

Valkyrie repressed a shiver and nodded, walking away as Crystal and Nadia laughed at Erskine's jokes.

Crystal joins the battle.

Meanwhile, Hagan has left the building. Don't worry, there will be chats about it later but I couldn't not kill him.

Remus Cyka Crux: Last chapter was big, I know, I was waiting really excited for your review, I knew you'd like it (and everyone else of course but you've been reviewing recently so mostly you). And get on that Bedlam order, I've gotten mine and finished reading it ages ago, I had it at the end of May. So good, just whatever you do, don't turn to the last page. Major spoiler, so do not be tempted. Am I tempting you? I'm not trying to do that, I really mean it, my heart jumped out of my chest. Also, you will be shipping Val and Razzle the whole time, and Val and Melitsa. It was just full of all things girly, so much fun! I'll stop winding you up now ;)