The sun was setting when Lewis and Curtis reached the gate of Betula. The pale stones of the city almost blended in with the birch forest around it. The two were just in time to enter the city before the gate would close for the night. They went to the most expensive inn, near the market. Lewis had never been to an inn like that before. Curtis got them separate rooms, handing over a lot of Tanza. Lewis had never seen such a pile of the blue and purple gem discs used to pay for an inn room. Even if dinner was included.

  The common room was large and crowded with well dressed people. Lewis felt out of place, and even more uncomfortable when people looked at him and whispered excitedly to each other. He wanted to raise his hood, but doubted that would be proper. He was thankful when Curtis led him to a table in a far corner. Dinner was a hearty stew of vegetables and rabbit meat.

  “This inn is very…” Lewis wasn’t sure how to say it, or how to ask the question that was gnawing at him.

  Curtis smiled. “I know it feels like we shouldn’t be here, but the court is the one who pays for it. They sent Tanza with their letter that told me when to bring you here. You are the High Mage.” He lowered his voice. “That is as high a position as the Queen’s adviser. You are of a higher rank than the nobles of Palegrove.”

  Lewis shrank down in his chair.

  “Sit up,” Curtis whispered. “People are watching. You need to look confident. If we’re to convince them of anything, we must start now, or there will be rumors all over the city that the High Mage is a frightened child.”

  Lewis sat up straighter. “I’m not a child…” he muttered.

  “Surely you’ve seen Stewart in public before,” Curtis said. “How did he act?”

  He had always looked uncomfortably rigid, not at all laid back like he was at home. He had an air of confidence all the time, but it was even more noticeable in public. Lewis didn’t have the slightest idea how to look that confident or important. It was all he could do to keep his hand from shaking while he ate. There were so many people staring at him. He avoided looking at them, but he dreaded what it would be like at the castle the next day. Would it be worse than this, or the same? The answer wouldn’t make him feel any better, so he didn’t ask Curtis.

  When at last they went up to their rooms, Lewis was somehow more drained than when he’d practiced his magic. Curtis went to his own room, not saying anything about practicing that night. Maybe he wanted Lewis well rested for meeting the court in the morning. Lewis doubted any amount of rest was going to prepare him for that. He slept little that night, staring up at the ceiling, uncomfortable in the vast bed with the strangely soft blankets. Even the bed in the High Mage’s tower wasn’t like this. That had been an ordinary bed.

  Lewis closed his eyes, managing only a little sleep before dawn. The common room was emptier during breakfast, but Lewis still felt eyes on him the entire time he ate. He and Curtis ate quickly and in silence before leaving the inn and heading for the castle, which loomed in a corner of the city. On the way, they passed the street where Lewis had grown up. He didn’t look down the street. A glimpse of his old home wouldn’t make him feel any better.

  At the castle, a man dressed in richly colored, fine fabric led them into the castle and into the vast throne hall. Lewis had never felt so stiff, but he didn’t know how to relax, how not to look like a frightened child. It didn’t help that Curtis was taller than him and Lewis was scrawny, his robes too big. Would anyone believe he was even nineteen? Even that was much too young to be High Mage, unless he was some kind of magic genius.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Curtis whispered.

  Lewis had been messing with the belt on his robes and hadn’t realized it. He let go quickly. “There are so many people here,” he whispered back.

  “It is the entire court,” Curtis said.

  At least two dozen people stood along either side of the throne hall. At the far end, Queen Abigail of Betula sat on her intricately carved wooden throne. Her long white hair was braided and tied in a bun. Her clothes were white with silver stitching as intricate as the carvings on the throne. Lewis recalled his father having mentioned the queen’s age a few years ago. She was sixty-eight now. Even sitting down, she had a presence greater than anyone else in the room. Someone wearing a black cloak with the hood up stood in the shadows to the side of the throne.

  “Who is that behind her?” Lewis whispered as he and Curtis walked down the long hall toward the throne.

  “Her adviser,” Curtis said. “Esther of Leafvale. Here is where we stop and bow.”

  Lewis followed Curtis’s lead, bowing low to the Queen of Betula.

  Queen Abigail nodded, a slight, graceful movement.

  The well dressed man who had accompanied Lewis and Curtis still stood behind them. He spoke in a booming voice that carried throughout the hall. “High Mage Lewis of Palegrove, and Elder Mage Curtis of Gareca.”

  Lewis couldn’t help but flinch with the loud, sudden voice right behind him. Whispers spread through the hall. The one he heard most clearly, all throughout the court, was the question of his age, of how one so young could possibly be High Mage. He heard a few mutterings of the fact Curtis looked far more qualified to be High Mage than Lewis.

  “This child is the new High Mage?” a man in the crowd asked. He stood closer to the throne than the others in the hall. His short blond hair was neatly combed. He appeared to be in his fifties.

  “Indeed he is, cousin,” Queen Abigail said, her voice carrying through the hall without her shouting. “Stewart named him as such. Stewart served as High Mage for many years, and if he believes his son is qualified for the position, then I believe him.”

  Lewis felt all the blood draining from his face. At least it wasn’t turning bright red this time, but he doubted this would give any better an impression.

  The queen’s cousin glared at Lewis, somehow even more frightening than Blake had been the other morning.

  “Martin of Palegrove,” Curtis whispered. “Queen’s cousin, first in line to the throne.”

  “He is hardly more than a child,” Martin said, still glaring. “So much a child he had to be accompanied by an Elder Mage.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “How many times did I accompany Stewart?” Curtis asked, his voice shaking a little despite how confident he looked.

  The queen smiled. “Each and every time he came. There is no rule against this, Martin, and the boy will still be learning what his duties are as High Mage. Curtis is the perfect person to teach him.” She frowned a little. “It would have been more ideal for Stewart to teach him himself. Is there any word on his whereabouts?”

  “I’m afraid not, Your Highness,” Curtis said, bowing low again. “All we have is the letter. Even Lewis doesn’t know where his father has gone.”

  Queen Abigail nodded slowly. “Perhaps Stewart simply tired of his position as High Mage, or perhaps he simply believed his son was ready.”

  Lewis didn’t know what to do, but doubted he should say anything, so he stayed silent and simply nodded stiffly.

  “There is already a request of import awaiting you, High Mage,” Queen Abigail said. “The farms of Leafvale are suffering due to an issue with their well and a recent lack of rain. All attempts to restore the well have failed and the crops will not survive much longer. Curtis shall accompany you, as this is your first request, and it is important enough to send both of you.” She stared at Lewis with eyes the same dark green as Martin’s. “This will show us all the strength of your magic. I trust you, Stewart’s son, will not be found wanting.”

  Curtis bowed again, so Lewis quickly followed, his heart beating fast. If he could barely make water ripple, how could he water all the farms of Leafvale? This question haunted him the entire way back to the inn. Curtis said nothing on the way, ghostly pale. He led Lewis upstairs, both of them going into Lewis’s room and sitting at the table in front of the large window.

  “What do we do?” Lewis asked, breaking the silence.

  “Creating water from the moisture in the air is a very advanced use of water magic,” Curtis said. “I wouldn’t try teaching it to a Novice, and I would teach it late to an Apprentice.”

  Now Lewis felt even worse. “It’s not something I can learn before we get to Leafvale, is it?”

  “Not likely,” Curtis said, frowning hard at the wood of the table. “Worse, the people of Leafvale will definitely be watching. I don’t know how much I can get away with doing the magic for you.” He leaned further back in his chair, silent for a long moment. “Perhaps we should focus on the well and not the fields. If we can fix the well, there will be no need for us to water the fields.”

  Lewis nodded, but what if they couldn’t fix the well? Curtis would have to water the fields, and if he did that, someone might notice Lewis wasn’t the one doing the magic. Fixing the well was their best chance of not revealing Lewis wasn’t even qualified to be a Novice, let alone High Mage. Neither of them said anything more about it. They ate dinner downstairs, with everyone else in the common room staring at Lewis and whispering. He slept little that night, despite knowing he would need energy for the journey and for what would happen when they reached Leafvale.

  Lewis and Curtis left just after breakfast, restocking their supplies before leaving through the opposite gate they had come through on the way into the city. This time they were following a road. There were others up ahead and a few more behind them. When night came, these other groups of travelers stopped to the side of the road within sight of Lewis and Curtis. They couldn’t risk Lewis practicing his magic with so many people around.

  The next day, the group of travelers behind them went down another, smaller road while the rest of them continued toward Leafvale. The sun was setting when they reached the edge of the forest, the small stretch of plains where all of Betula’s farms were. At least the land was fertile, but if all these crops failed, Betula would have no choice but to buy food from Ferax. Conlis had little farmland as well, and theirs never produced much. Like Conlis, Betula relied on hunting and fishing for food along with farming, but they would still have a shortage without the food from the farms.

  The farming town of Leafvale was at the center of the fields. Lewis didn’t manage to count all the fields before he and Curtis reached the town. He doubted he could water one plant, let alone all of these fields. Lewis wasn’t sure Curtis could water all these crops alone either. He saw Curtis staring at the fields, having gone pale. Maybe he was thinking the same thing. At the center of town, an older man stood beside a well. A crowd had gathered there.

  The man bowed. “Welcome, High Mage. We heard you set out from Palegrove two days ago and hoped you would arrive soon. A room has been set up for you and Elder Mage Curtis at the inn. I am the Alder of Leafvale. If you have questions, I will do my best to answer them.”

  “Thank you,” Lewis said, unable to keep his voice from shaking a little. Hopefully they would just think he was tired.

  The inn was more comfortable than the one in Palegrove, because it was less extravagant. There was also no one else in the common room, so Lewis and Curtis ate in peace, with no whispers or stares. The inn had only two rooms, one of which was occupied, so Lewis and Curtis were to share. There were two beds in the room, as well as a table with two chairs near the window. It was reassuring how normal it looked compared to the inn in Palegrove.

  “Get some sleep if you can,” Curtis said. “We’ll see what we can do about the well in the morning.”

  The people of Leafvale would have tried to fix the well. If they couldn’t do it, what could Lewis and Curtis do? Lewis’s worries kept him awake most of the night again. He was tired enough when he woke up that he wasn’t sure he could do any magic at all. He took a deep breath and got out of bed. The sun had almost finished rising, and Curtis was already up, putting on his robes. Lewis went into the washroom and splashed cold water on his face from the basin. That woke him up a little, but not enough to suddenly do the impossible and do magic far beyond his capabilities.

  Curtis said nothing during breakfast, staring at his porridge with distant eyes. There were dark circles under his eyes, as though he had slept no better than Lewis. Breakfast was over too soon. The two of them went out to the well, where the alder and many others gathered to watch. No one said anything while Curtis and Lewis examined the well. Lewis looked down, the light of sunrise just enough to see into the darkness.

  “There’s no water,” Curtis said.

  “It dried up many days ago,” the alder said. “We don’t know why. We’ve been getting water from a river in the forest, but it’s a long way to walk. There’s no way we can water all the fields with water from the river alone.”

  “Can you sense the water with your magic?” Curtis whispered.

  Lewis reached out with his magic, how he did when he made water ripple. To his surprise, he felt something. “Is it stuck somehow?” he whispered back.

  Curtis nodded, smiling briefly. “Maybe there are stones blocking its path into the well, or something else. The water might just need some help to push past it. It’s just like making it ripple, making it move, but you’ll have to imagine the water rather than seeing it.” He kept his voice low enough that only Lewis would hear him.

  Lewis closed his eyes, imagining the water in a small, dark tunnel far beneath the ground. He imagined a rock in its path, holding the water back. He felt the water with his magic, but how would he know if it was moving? His magic flowed through the water, giving him a better idea of the shape of the tunnel. Maybe there really was a rock blocking the way. He adjusted the imagined tunnel in his mind and made the rock bigger, then he willed the water to move.

  The water rippled, sloshing around in the tight space. The rock began to move. Lewis’s hands were sweaty where he gripped the edge of the well. The people gathered around the well were whispering, and he was aware of Curtis standing beside him. Lewis let go of his awareness of his surroundings, focusing entirely on the water far below them. If he could do this, they wouldn’t have to water the fields with magic. The water pressed against the rock harder. With one last push of magic and intention, the rock gave way, the water pushing it out into the main part of the well.

  Lewis opened his eyes, a sharp, cold feeling flashing across his chest. His breath caught, but the feeling was gone as quickly as it had come. He stared down into the well as the water level rose. He had fixed the well.