[Friendly, Carry]

  Draco glided down from the second floor and I slid off his back, thanked him then entered the clinic. There was a line of applicants half human and half gnome. I should have brought Mossbeard, if I wanted a portal here I needed a drawing. So I walked back up to the bakery. Salome knew this town like the back of her hand and I had been here in Wyldwood for longer, but she just loves to go out and explore the town. I remember McCracken telling me that Salome had taken him on a guided tour of the town and half the stuff he’d seen I’d never even heard of.

  She was busy waiting on a table of three women who couldn’t make up their minds, I felt like screaming just to get the sweet buns, they are great. I guess Sparky is right. I need to develop some patience. Should I meditate like Jaq. No way, I don’t have the patience to meditate. The three women finally decided, I should have screamed it, they each got a sweet bun.

  But Salome came right over. “Hey, honey does Wyldwood have a leathersmith?”

  “Yeah, a nice one too, are you getting leather pants and jacket, like those biker chicks in the movies, Doug plays.”

  “No, I just want a wallet, to hold pictures.”

  “You’d look cool in leather pants, Rose.”

  “Thanks Salome, but I always wear skirts so for now I’ll just get the wallet, where is the leathersmith, are they hard to find?”

  “No, they have a booth set up in the town square on market days Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

  “Thanks Salome, I’ll try and get up there today.”

  “Bye Rose, think about those pants you’d look so cool, like a demon hunter.”

  “You are reading too much manga, Salome.”

  “How can a Bibliomancer ever say too much reading, Rose?”

  “Touche, Salome.”

  I hurried inside and portaled back to the bookstore.

  “Seriously, again I thought you were working on the nursing school.”

  “Hey Sparky, I can multi-task. But I need Mossbeard, I created a magical field, stopped, then added a tiny amount of magic to it. Then Draco took over and the clinic is enclosed in a magical field. So we can now set up a portal there, as an experiment, I want Mossbeard to draw ninety nine percent of the portal site. Then have Opal draw the last one percent. I have another question do these portals work like jumping, for instance if Mossbeard was holding my arm, when I touched a drawing would he be portaled with me?”

  “First, how do you feel after creating and adding to the magical field?”

  “I felt a tiny bit tired before I cut off adding magic to the field. Now I feel like I could do it again no problem. But Draco and I will do the retirement home tomorrow, so I’m doing just like you and he advised. Very slowly, a little bit at a time. I’d love to learn how to tell how much magic I have left in me. Also can Bibliomancers author magic, if I jump to Juliet’s World could I just write Rose’s magic is one hundred percent?”

  “One question at a time junior apprentice, portals do work like jumping if someone is touching you, they come through the portal with you. Yes you can take Mossbeard for your experiment. Can Bibliomancers author magic, that apprentice is an interesting question, that I don’t know if anyone ever thought to ask before. But you don’t know what magic level you are currently at, are you still tired from creating the field and filling?”

  “Not noticeably, no.”

  “Alright, then go out in the street and create a magical field, if you aren’t tired after that fill it a little bit, check to see if you are tired, just keep repeating that, until you feel noticeably tired. Don’t dissipate the field, that’ll return magical energy to you and ruin the experiment. Jump to one of your fictional worlds and try to author one hundred percent magic for yourself. Practice patience, don’t rush, this doesn’t all need to be done today. That’s the whole purpose of a todo list. Mossbeard follow her out in the street, if she collapses, come and get me, when she disappears you can come back in and continue what you are doing.”

  Mossbeard and I went out into the lane. I walked a few paces away from the door so I could easily distinguish where my magical field started and ended and where the bookstores magical field started and ended.

  I thought of Draco's instruction from this morning. I closed my eyes, I looked with my third eye to a spot an arm's length in front of my line of vision. I felt myself forming that fist sized ball. I opened my eyes and I could see the faint glow of the tiny ball, I closed my eyes. I looked again through my forehead, I imagined myself growing that ball, making it larger, slowly filling, expanding the field. I opened my eyes, the field had indeed grown; it was now twice the size.

  I paused, how do I feel, am I tired? No, so I repeated the steps to expanding the field and after a few seconds I opened my eyes and the ball had doubled in size again. How did I feel? I was excited, this is much bigger then the ball I had created that day with Draco when I then slept for twenty four hours. But the critical question I guess is the excitement masking my ability to determine if I’m tired or not? I decided that if I was truly tired, I’d at least feel it just a little.

  If I can double it in size again then I’ll have created a portal sized ball, so instead of jumping into the store we can jump to the front of the store and have our first public portal. This of course makes me more excited. So I’m really wondering if I should just quit while I’m ahead.

  “Look at me Rose and tell me how you feel.”

  I turn to see Sparky standing in the shop doorway, eyeing me critically.

  “I’m really excited and don’t really feel tired at all.”

  “Rose you and Mossbeard come in now”

  “But if I can just double it one more time…”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Now Rose, means now.”

  I followed him into the store, Mossbeard right behind me.

  “Alright Rose go into the privy and have a look in the mirror.”

  I walked in all that excitement was starting to fade, suddenly I could feel it, I was tired. I looked into the mirror, my eyes were red, I had dark circles under my eyes. I looked like I hadn’t slept for a few days. I went back out.

  “Sorry Sparky, I swear I didn’t feel tired, I’ll jump to Juliet’s world and try to refill my magic.”

  “Stop, call Juliet and ask her to come here.”

  I stare into the void Hello Juliet, Juliet could you please come to the bookstore I need some help.

  Juliet popped into view. She came running over to me.

  “What’s wrong with you are you sick? You look sick, let’s go see Dr Denton”

  “I’m not sick, I just overdid my magic, it makes me tired, let’s jump to your farm, I might be able to refill there, it’s my happy place.”

  “Ah you big idiot, I’ll jump you.”

  We jumped to the farm. I authored my magic is one hundred percent full. I instantly felt better.

  “Wow, Rose, it really is your happy place isn’t it.”

  “Of course ever since I was a kid, whenever anything went wrong, I would write some more about your home or I’d just find you and talk. Pretty soon I wouldn’t even remember why I had to get out of my reality and into yours.”

  “You look two hundred percent better, you really had me worried there back at the store, why did you push yourself so hard?”

  “I didn’t think I was, I was so excited that my magic was working that it completely masked how tired I actually was. But I feel fine now. I’m sorry if I interrupted whatever you were doing.

  “No it’s fine, I wasn’t busy, I was just going to see how the new hay loft remodeling job was progressing.”

  “So how did you make out with the farm competition with Sebastian?”

  “My farm produced a third more than his farm did. So now he wants to go away to college. I’m sure he just thinks that he has a better chance of getting ravished if he’s a college student.”

  “So the farm is yours then?”

  “Yep father had the lawyer draw up the paperwork last week. I’m in charge of the farm, mama is in charge of the house. Papa is in charge of his office, god knows what he does in there. Seb isn’t in charge of anything.”

  “Well don’t tell him, but if you want me to make a farm for him on the other side of town, I’d be happy too. I know you don’t want to see him, have a hard life.”

  “Let’s see if he actually can make something of himself in college. He might have the brains to be a lawyer, he was never going to make it as a farmer.”

  “If he ever needs help, just tell me, I always thought of him as a little brother, I want him to have a happy life. I better get back to the store, Sparky was mad, that I over did it.”

  “You be careful, Rose, even Sparky might be right once in a while.”

  I jumped back to the store. Sparky looked me up and down.

  “Well report, junior apprentice.”

  “I authored my magic to one hundred percent as soon as I arrived and I feel much, much better.”

  “Yet you still look tired. Are you really not tired?”

  “Well I guess I am still a little tired but nothing like when Juliet and I jumped.”

  “I don’t think that you authored your magic back, I think your fictional world charged you up quicker than would normally happen. Jump back to the tower and explain to Draco what you’ve been doing and why. Ask him what his magic level is if it’s less than one hundred percent ask him to jump with you to one of your fictional worlds and fill him up. Check his magic level in the fictional world then when you get back to Wyldwood check again."

  I jumped to the tower and did as Sparky asked. Draco agreed and I jumped us both to Juliet’s World where I authored his magic level to one hundred percent.

  “Did it work Draco, is your magic at one hundred percent?”

  “I don’t believe it, I think it’s over one hundred, I think my magic capacity actually grew, it hasn’t grown in hundreds of years. Let’s get back to the bookstore, I want to talk to Sparky about this. I’ll also finish that public transport gate you want in front of the store.”

  “How do I learn how to tell what my magic level is Draco? I get excited doing the magic and that masks how tired I really am. I almost drove myself as hard as that first day that you taught me how to manipulate the field.”

  “Rose I don’t think it’s a thing that you learn, I think that experience just grants you the knowledge. The more you do it the better you get at it. The better you can gauge how much you used and how much you have left. By the time you have this network setup I think you’ll find you have a much finer grasp. If you can tell within twenty five percent what you have left, that’s fine grained enough for most magicians. Practice every day is what makes you better at it all around, not just knowing how much you used and how much you have left but you become more efficient at expanding fields, creating them and deflating them, capturing back a good portion of the magic you expended. Let’s go back.”

  So I jumped us back to the bookstore.