someone who already knows how to do it teaches them.”
“Like you teach me, except sometimes I surprise you.”
He certainly did. “Just like that, kiddo. But sometimes a new kind of magic or a new kind of spell comes along—not very often, but when it does, witches have to work together to figure out what to do with it.”
Ginia tilted her head to one side, deep in thought. “Well, we know you can use Net power to spellcode.”
“Right, but that might not be the only use. All we know for sure is that it’s a power source, and most power sources can be used to create lots of different kinds of magic.”
Aervyn bounced on his seat. “We get to make up stuff?”
Jamie hoped he wasn’t digging himself way in over his head. Nothing like letting the world’s most powerful witchling loose with a new magic source and no rules. “It’s more like being detectives. We need to do some small tests and see what kinds of magic we can maybe do.”
Aervyn’s face fell comically. “If we can get the small magic to work, can we try big magic?”
“Absolutely.” Jamie closed his eyes for a moment and ported a box of training props from the basement. He started to lift a candle out of the box, and then changed his mind; he wanted Ginia to have first crack at this. Pulling out a closed rosebud, he handed it to his niece.
She looked confused for a moment, and then nodded, clearly having figured out what he wanted.
He dropped into light monitoring contact to watch her work. Reaching for the mouse, she had fireworks going off in her mind almost instantly. Jamie was impressed—someone had been practicing.
Pretty fast there, Warrior Girl. Now let’s see if you can get that bud to bloom. Net power only; don’t use your earth powers.
He watched several tries and could see her problem. Her mind knew how to pull earth energies for this kind of magic, and she couldn’t keep them entirely turned off.
Hmm. Let’s try something you can’t do with elemental powers.
Jamie poured water into a glass and added a tall straw. Can you get the water to move up the straw? Ginia had strong earth power and a little fire as well, but she had no water talent.
It was apparent in a few minutes that she wasn’t going to get the job done with Net power, either. Ginia opened her eyes and scowled. “This isn’t going to work.”
“That didn’t, but let’s give Aervyn a try, and then we’ll move on to something else.”
She shook her head, an undersized woman on a mission. “It doesn’t make any sense. Net power is new—why would it work to do old magic? Water power works to move water around, so maybe Net power moves… I don’t know, ‘Net’ around.”
Aervyn’s eyes went big. “What’s that?”
Ginia giggled. “Maybe it’s like an invisible superpower. So it works best to do stuff that’s invisible.”
Invisible stuff… light bulbs went off in Jamie’s head. “When you spellcode, Ginia, the Net power readings are strongest when you join the programming code to the spell.”
“Sure. That’s the trickiest step.”
“Right.” Jamie tried to bring focus to his very fuzzy idea. “But think about what you’re actually doing at that moment—you’re joining two things together. Maybe Net power is good for joining kinds of magic.”
“Like the Internet.” Ginia sucked in her breath. “The Net joins people, and ideas, and…” her words trickled off in wordless excitement.
Right. Magic had affinities. Water power worked best with water and other things that flowed. Fire power was most effective at creating heat and light. Maybe Net power was meant to be used to form connections and links.
He put together a picture in his mind of what he wanted to try and pushed it out to his trainees. He picked up a candle out of the box for himself and handed the closed rosebud to Aervyn. Ginia held the mouse and nodded. Ready.
Jamie used fire power to light the candle as Aervyn gently trickled earth magic to open the flower. He could see the fierce concentration on Ginia’s face and the building light in her mind.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then flame danced from the petals of the open flower in Aervyn’s hand. Ginia had done it. She’d joined their spells.
There were few moments Jamie loved more than watching a witchling own their power for the first time. Her sun-bright joy was contagious, and he felt his magic surge in response.