The Monster's Apprentice: Chapter 76 - When the Clock Strikes Thirteen | Part 1
“Few know that pureblooded vampires are not merely creatures who drink blood. The oldest among them wield magic that even the most gifted human or elven sorcerers can only dream of. Unlike mortals, whose connection to the arcane is taught or earned, purebloods grow into their power naturally. With each century, their strength grows, and the limits of their abilities stretch beyond mortal comprehension. There is, however, an old legend. It speaks of a singular child, born once in a lifetime, with magic not taught or passed down, but ingrained in the marrow of their being. They say this child wields magic in its most raw and unfiltered form, untouched by lineage or ritual. If anyone were to rival a pureblooded vampire in arcane might, it would be them. But then again, it’s just a legend.”
— Reverend Isaac Grimsby, “Bloodworth: A Study of Vampiric Predators,” page 91
Later that evening, Emily found herself sitting atop the catwalk around the exterior of Harderfield’s clock tower.
Mina had brought her here because it was a quiet place high up where they could get a better view of the burnt grapevines that marred the otherwise picturesque vista like a scar. She had to be carried, of course, Emily knew with a single glance that she didn’t have the energy to scale the tower otherwise.
She had expected Mina to be furious with her, and she was, to a degree, but not nearly as badly as she had expected.
Together, they sat on the narrow catwalk as thunder cracked the sky. Gray clouds had rolled in, and as the two of them took drags from their cigarettes, they listened to the rain pitter-pattering against the gable roof. Thankfully, this helped to extinguish the remaining fires.
“So it was a test?” Emily asked after white smoke jetted from her nose.
Mina nodded as she dragged deep. Then, she flicked the ashes from her cigarette.
“Karaline was in on it, wasn’t she?”
“It was a test to see how you fared on your own.”
“But I wasn’t on my own.”
“Trust me, you were,” she said with a smirk. “You could have handled yourself better, but you’re better than alright.”
Emily scoffed. “You don’t say.” She glanced down at her arms. The light had dimmed slightly as the fracture scars began to slowly seal themselves.
“You handled yourself well, Emily. You handled the fire well. Certainly in a creative way.”
“I got the idea from Henrik and his knights,” she said with a chuckle.
Mina peered over at her. “I may not have been too pleased with Dorian joining you, but if anything, he benefited by giving you a secondary objective to protect.”
“He was at least someone I could talk to.”
“And I didn’t mind you returning to look through the bestiaries. You should use every available resource you have to ensure the job gets done. Don’t get into the habit of doing it often, though. You were lucky you could take your time on this one.” Again, silence fell over the two. Mina took a few drags from her cigarette before finally asking, “But if you knew that fire was its weakness, why didn’t you use it sooner?”
Emily went quiet, glancing nervously at the floor. She knew this question would come up. “I… wanted to try killing it without magic…”
“Why?”
“I…” Emily stumbled over her words. She couldn’t formulate a complete answer.
“I’d understand if you didn’t want to rely on it, but I know that’s not the reason.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be. I know it’s not easy for you, using your magic like that, but you can’t keep second-guessing yourself. You’re the conduit, Emily. That’s not something anyone else can claim. You’re the first in centuries to have had a chance to do something meaningful with that gift. It’s scary, yes, but you cannot be afraid of it.”
Emily’s brow furrowed. “I can throw a fireball just fine. Hell, I can make things float, too. I can light a flame with a snap. But anything more than that…” She trailed off, eyes narrowing. “I’ve been doing everything you asked. I’ve been building up my endurance and pushing myself. I’ve been meditating and studying magic. But it just… it feels like…” She sighed.
“You are getting better, Emily,” Mina said quietly. “Back there, you held yourself together longer than I’ve ever seen you.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” she whispered. “It felt like I was drowning. Like the magic was too big for me, and I was just…” She paused, letting out a shaky breath. “All I ever wanted to be was a witch. I don’t know why, but I did. Some professors at Peccatum University thought I had a chance. So I studied, and practiced, and practiced, and practiced… but nothing ever worked. Everyone else could move a leaf or float a candle, but I couldn’t even manage that.”
Mina stayed quiet and listened.
“I used to think I didn’t have it. Like I was born without an ounce of magic in my body.” Emily gave a humorless laugh. “And then when the magic finally did come… I destroyed everything… I… I had all this power inside me, but I couldn’t even use it. It was like…”
“Like it wasn’t even there,” Mina finished for her. “The professors at Peccatum might have seen magical potential in you, but they would never have known how powerful you would truly be.”
Emily clenched her fists. “Maybe if my powers had shown up sooner… maybe they wouldn’t have kicked me out. My family wouldn’t have gone into debt trying to keep me there. They’d still be here. They wouldn’t have—” She cut herself off.
Mina kept quiet.
“You know what they said to me when I got kicked out? The professors. They said I was a waste of their time, that I wasn’t trying hard enough. They said I’d never amount to anything… that I’d never be a real witch.” The cigarette between her fingers snapped with a sharp crack. “And now here I am proving them wrong.” Her voice trembled. “I had that power inside me that whole fucking time, and I couldn’t even tap into it! I’m the fucking conduit! Sorcerers bend magic to their will, while I’m its master! I’m the embodiment of all magic! The convergence of every arcane force that courses through our world! And I can’t even fucking control it!” She hurled the snapped cigarette through the wall of rain.
Mina stayed silent.
Emily’s nails dug into her palm. “How pathetic is that?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “The embodiment of all magic… and I can’t even keep it straight while some old geezer can wave his hands and summon a hurricane if he pleases.” She took a breath. “Sometimes I wonder if those professors were right. Even with all this power, I’ll never be a real witch. I can’t control it… but even if I could… if I could control this storm and water their fields, somehow, I’ll still fuck it up and burn this entire town to ashes while it was still wet.”
“You can’t think like that, Emily.”
“Why not? That’s what everyone told me. Everyone but you… and my dad. My own mom didn’t even believe in me… Lux pretends to be supportive, but I know she doesn’t really care.”
“You’re already proving them wrong, and I don’t see why you still doubt it. Look at what you’ve accomplished in just a year. Do you think any of those students you were studying with could do what you did?”
Emily didn’t answer.
“I never expected you to become the greatest witch of all time overnight,” Mina said. “One day, sure, I want to see you master this. I want to see you become the best. And I believe you will. But right now? Right now, I just want to see you hold onto it. I want to see you grasp it.”
Emily didn’t answer at first. She hunched forward and pulled her legs tight against her chest. “You don’t get it,” she finally said. “It doesn’t feel like I’m getting better. It feels like I’m constantly standing on the edge of something I can’t see. I’m not using magic… I’m just barely surviving it.” She paused. “You saw what happened back there.”
“I saw you grasping it. I saw you keeping it under control.”
“Barely. It was killing me.”
“And you’re learning to live with it. I know it’s not what you pictured when you were a little girl dreaming of casting spells in a tower with a pointy hat, but this is what you’ve got. And it’s real.”
Emily sat quietly for a long moment. Something was stirring inside her, and she couldn’t quite name it. It almost felt numbing. “Sometimes… sometimes I still wonder if the professors were right. That I’d never be good enough. That I was just… broken. I may have this power, but I’ll never be able to properly wield it.”
“You’re not broken,” Mina said. “You’re unfinished.”
Emily blinked at her.
Mina knelt down, finally meeting her at eye level. “You think I don’t see it, but I do. I see the weight you’re carrying. I see the fear, the doubt. But I also see the way you stood between the Bloomcrawler and a whole vineyard full of people who didn’t even know how close they came to dying. I see the way you keep fighting even when you’re shaking. Even when you hate yourself.”
“But how am I supposed to be the one who kills Queen Lockhart? How am I supposed to avenge my home, stop Draven, save people, all of it, when I can’t even stop myself from almost burning everything down?”
“Because you don’t have to do it yet. You’re not finished learning. You don’t have to be the hero today. You just have to keep trying. You think you’re alone in this, but you’re not. You have me. You have Violet and Karaline. You have more people than you think.”
Emily wiped her eyes with the back of her glove, trying to hide it, but not really succeeding.
“And yeah, this burden is heavy. It always will be. But you’re not carrying it alone.”
“It just… feels like a lot.”
“It is a lot. But you’re not a little girl who can’t lift a leaf anymore. You’re the one who stopped the Bloomcrawler when no one else could. You’re the one who’s standing up to Queen Lockhart.”
Emily took a slow breath, staring deep into Mina’s shimmering silver eyes. The woman exhaled quietly and gently squeezed Emily’s shoulder.
“I wish I could be as strong as you,” she whispered.
Emily stopped and tilted her head in confusion. As strong as her? She didn’t get it. Mina was way stronger than her.
“One day, Nathan wanted to take Luna to see the ocean. And when we went, that was when she found us. I wasn’t ready. I told myself I would be, but when it counted… I froze, just like I always had. I watched her come for everything. I watched. Because I still couldn’t look her in the eye and fight back.”
Mina fell completely quiet. A minute passed without a word said between them, and the uncomfortable weight of the silence started to crush Emily.
Then, finally, Mina spoke again, after she had collected herself. There was a faint, wet shimmer in her eyes. “That’s why I wish I were more like you. Because you’re not like me, Emily. You might not see it yet, but you don’t freeze. Even when the magic is out of control, even when you’re terrified, you stand, and you fight. You try, even when every part of you is screaming to run. You’re not there yet, I know that. But the strength is already inside you.”
Emily’s chest tightened.
“One day, she’s going to come for me again. And I’ll have to face her. And if I falter, if I fall, I need to know someone stronger is there. Not just because of the power in their blood. Not because they’re a conduit. But because they won’t run. Because they won’t freeze. And that person… is you.”
Emily wasn’t sure at all what to say. There were no words in her thought, not a single thought that came to the forefront of her mind. Her chest swelled with emotion, but it was hard to encapsulate it. Mina was depending on her, and so were countless others. Even if she was doubting herself, she knew she had to do it anyway. I was going to be on a long, hard road; she knew that, but it was comforting knowing she wasn’t the only one feeling this way.
“I’ll try to be that person then,” Emily whispered.
Mina smiled and flicked her cigarette into the rain. “I know you will.”
Emily couldn’t help but smile back.
For a moment, they both remained quiet, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain.
“I think you’ve earned yourself a break.”
Emily chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah, I could really use one.”
“How about when we get back home, and after you rest a little, why don’t we give that hair dye a try?”
Emily’s heart fluttered for a brief second. “Really?”
Mina nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
They stepped into the clocktower’s main chamber. The oppressive noise of groaning gears and cogs drowned out the heavy rain. The clock’s hands had been creeping towards six o’clock, and neither of them wanted to be up there when the bell tolled loud enough for the distant workers to even hear.
“That was a touching story,” said a familiar voice. “But I do recall there being quite a bit more blood.”
Mina quickly shoved Emily behind her and drew both her pistols. The barrels aimed straight at Draven, who stood by the stairs leading down to the town hall.
In an instant, Emily’s heart was racing.
It was him. It was really him.
Draven looked like the pinnacle of sophistication, perfect in any way, from the sharp angles of his jawline and cheekbones to the finely combed black hair. Even his confident gaze with a gleam of silver in his eyes. There weren’t even any scars, as if his face hadn’t melted at all. Did he really recover that quickly? No, the holy water Mina had hurled at him should have been permanent.
Before Draven could utter another word, the room erupted with gunfire.
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