Category: fantasy

And Lois was ready for it to be over. He was walking as quietly as he could back to the room and an extremely angry wizard stormed through him, not bothering to edge past Lois in the
narrow hallway. The doors nearest opened an inch and slammed shut in an instant. Gligor shook his head back at Lois.

“Typical. If wizards without sufficient control get upset, or feel any strong emotions, in fact, the world around them reacts to that emotion. Luckily Violeta isn’t that powerful or this building would have been leveled a long time ago.”

Lois stifled a yawn. He was exhausted already

Josép Aliénor threw down the ridiculously dense copy of The Comprehensive Guide to Magic
Spells. Lois was the one who read all this, but now that he had a job, Josép was left to research his own condition with nothing other than what Lois had told him and this insufferable excuse for a book. No, the book was fine. It would have been really helpful, actually, if Josép had any idea what he was looking for.

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t see the tattoo without a mirror, but he could feel it burning into his back, and he could hear its slow, constant ticking. Some nights it drove him crazy. It never stopped. It never quieted. He heard it sleeping and waking, night and day.
Some days he couldn’t stand it any more and slammed his fist into the wall.

Then his parents would come.

“What are you doing, Josép?”

“You need to stay calm. There’s no reason to get angry.” He kept his eyes down, but
he wanted to scream at them. You don’t understand. He wanted to tell them how it felt to have your seconds counted, not everyone’s seconds counted like a clock did, but just your seconds. They didn’t understand what it was like to have a time bomb on your back, a time bomb that could do anything when it went off. They didn’t know, and they couldn’t. The
truth would be even worse than years of oppressive lies.

Josép checked his watch to see if it was time for Lois to come home yet. Then he
remembered that his older brother wouldn’t be home until the weekend. He sighed. It was only Monday. This was going to be a long week.

Elia slid into an empty seat at the poker table; Rei was shuffling. No one was talking.

“Gligor’s got an apprentice.” Elia mentioned. Violeta scoffed.

“Probably some stuck up prick who wants control over the only people lower than he is.” Elia lowered her head and stole a glance at Violeta.

“He shook my hand.” Rei stopped shuffling

“He what?”

“Shook my hand. And he said it was a pleasure to meet me.” Violeta shook her head.

“He probably just wants to fuck you.”

Elia glared. Violeta flinched as tiny daggers prodded her face.

“He knew I was a wizard. And no human wants to fuck a wizard.”

“Yeah, lay off, Violeta,” Rei agreed. “Maybe you could even give the new guy a chance. For God’s sake, you never even gave Gligor a chance.” Violeta glared at Rei.

“I don’t need to give him a chance. He’s a human. Humans hate us, so I hate them.
End of story.” She slammed the table to push herself to her feet and out the door. Gerhardt shook his head and rolled his eyes. Rei and Elia made fleeting eye contact and looked down at their cards.

“I’ll raise,” Gerhardt started. Now Elia rolled her eyes.

Another bluff

Lois followed Gligor through the maze of passages that lead from the Wizard world to the human world. Lois would have opposed such language, but it was true.

“Now,” Gligor started, squeezing sideways through the dark musty halls, “in case you’re not familiar, this is where most Wizards live when they don’t have external jobs, but there are plenty of internal jobs to keep them busy. They buy their own food with their own
credits, but they live here.

“Some of the Low-Ranking Wizards like Violeta and Elia, 29’s and 30’s, stay here
most of the time, but pet Wizards like Gerhardt just come here to play poker.”

“Poker?” Lois asked.

“Yes, poker. Wizards take it pretty seriously, not sure why, but it’s a big deal.

Don’t interrupt a poker game unless you want your head fried. That’s tip number one. Rule number one is stay out of their business, but tip number two is to break that rule. You’ll get some overseers that don’t care about wizards; that’s a mistake. Get to know your Wizards
and they’ll be more willing to work with you.” They reached the reception area, the human world. “In fact, you will be living in wizard quarters. His key, Joe.

The receptionist, Joe, handed Lois a tarnished gold-colored key.

“218; Your bags are in your room,” Joe yawned and turned back to his computer. Gligor slapped Lois on the back. I’ll take you up there; I’m 220.

The two young wizards stared at each other, bags with their sparse belongings clutched to their chests. The younger wizard bit her lip, feeling like she should say something but too nervous to open her lips. The other wizard’s stony blue eyes didn’t move from her own. He was
trying to pin down what color they were. Every time he felt like he had decided, they shifted again. He gave up and stuck out his hand.

“Hovsep,” he greeted bluntly. She took his hand.

“Elia.” Their hands dropped to their sides, and, again, they stared.