Every seventh day, the gardens on the fourth floor filled with the cheerful noise of children too young for lessons.

  Orion knew the routine so well that he could visualize it with his eyes closed: his mother would step out from her workshop, still smelling of herbal steam and beeswax finish, take a single indulgent breath, and announce with her warm, unshakable cheer, “Come, moonbeam, time to see the sun and your friends.”

  He did not object out loud. Objecting only led to longer speeches about the importance of friendship, and he had long since learned that Asteria could be surprisingly stubborn.

  Instead, he tucked the potion manual he had been studying under his mattress, hid two loose sheets of notes in his pillowcase, and marched beside her out of their apartment and toward the silver arch that guarded the garden.

  As he always did, he promised himself that the outing would amount to fieldwork. When full liberty finally came—whether at ten, when he could start attending lessons; at thirteen, when he got his class; or whenever the Sanctum decided he could be trusted enough to go off on his own, every clue gathered now would matter.

  Asteria’s fingers brushed against the runes etched into the archway, and the silver gates swung open. Outside stretched a square mile of patterned lawns and flower beds that grew in spirals, circles, and crescents, all laid out as if someone had dropped a pebble into a pond and frozen the ripples in green.

  At the center shimmered a pond whose water never settled on a single hue; one moment it was lapis, the next a smoky jade. Fish the length of a man’s hand glided beneath the colorful surface, slippery enough to evade the most curious children.

  Sometimes Orion thought the pond was larger than it had been the previous week, and sometimes it seemed smaller. The fish appeared to grow and shrink with it. When he first saw them, he pressed his face to the water’s edge, hoping one would drift close enough to catch. After Asteria caught him fashioning a makeshift spear, she laid down the absolute rule. “You can only look at them, moonbeam. They aren’t potion ingredients.”

  Since then, he had observed from a distance, cataloging how water currents pushed the fish away whenever a threat approached too closely for comfort, causing their wake to refract through the ripples, making the water almost syrupy long enough for them to vanish. If he could have opened one up, he felt he could have learned so much, but the Sanctum loved its mysteries.

  He would wait. Patience in this life had to substitute for proper lab equipment. He had only rarely managed to replicate his success from three years ago with the Sapping Brew and obtained an attribute point, and never when it made sense.

  Sometimes, his Mind increased after listening to a homily, while his Attunement seemed to be even pickier, though not as much as his Body.

  It was frustrating, but he knew he would eventually get his answers. Every seemingly unrelated occurrence was a data point, after all.

  The garden, although dedicated to relaxation, remained a place of small, useful secrets. For instance, the moss rugs between the paving stones were never damp, even after rain. A particularly dry soil below the initial strata? No, more likely the moss itself has a “magical” trait.

  Some plants or animals, he had learned, were apparently endowed with unique abilities or attributes. According to his mother, that was their version of the Moon’s blessing, which sapient species perceived as the System.

  The orchard’s pear trees flowered in sequence from the outer rings inward. That genuinely baffled him, but one day he caught an elderly witch pouring something on the roots of the farther ones, leading him to conclude that she was deliberately altering the speed of their cycles.

  Why she was doing that, he didn’t know, but his mother always checked to see if there were flowers on the trees before letting him “go play.” It’s probably an obscure security feature. Or maybe she just likes pear flowers. Ugh.

  The children were not particularly interesting, but they served a purpose. Asteria believed that friendship forged better people, and Orion didn’t care enough to argue against that philosophy—only against the time it wasted. Given that he had no other pressing issues, he couldn’t mount much opposition to her directive to make friends.

  Still, there were worse duties than sitting under a willow while children chased one another in squealing loops. He had even formed what could be described as a quiet alliance with three of them.

  Luna and Dorian preferred climbing branches and occasionally returned to show him a shiny beetle or a colorful feather; they understood he would only give brief acknowledgments, but they didn’t seem to mind.

  Selene, solemn and platinum blonde, stayed near him with a basket of wildflowers. She did not demand that he speak; instead, she braided stems into crowns and occasionally handed him one to examine. He suspected she enjoyed having a witness more than a playmate. In return, he appreciated her talent for remaining silent. Many adults were not so gifted.

  One further advantage of their spot near the willow was its proximity to the mothers’ bench. Witches in teaching robes, herb-mistresses from the coven’s Pantry—the large complex where every ingredient was stored—two enchanters, and the lone mundane mother—all gathered beneath an ivy trellis and exchanged news while the children played.

  From their discussions, Orion pieced together a solid understanding of the current events that the Sanctum preferred to hide from Initiates. Today, the breeze carried something more intriguing than the usual gossip about a particularly dashing guardsman or which toddler had almost levitated a spoon.

  “The last shipment of Ginori pine practically floated on its own,” Selene’s mother grumbled, an alchemist of explosives who complained about everything from cloud cover to the pitch of morning bells. “You call that density? Bah, the Ranch has gotten more brazen with their scams. If they didn’t have a monopoly, I would have long since stopped buying from them.”

  “They shorted the marble honey, too,” the shorter cook added, the only woman on the bench without embroidered sigils on her sleeves. Her voice was quick, pleased to share something of interest. “The Chief Cook told me that this has been going on for a while, but that it has recently gotten much worse.”

  Asteria’s brow lifted. “That explains why the Veil Priestess asked for Melma’s Obscuring Concoction to be prepared in such great quantity. I have made enough for her to curse those annoying elves to soggy socks and creaky hinges for three generations.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Soft chuckles drifted over the flowerbeds as the mothers giggled at the idea of elves grumbling about suspicious humidity soaking their socks or their doors creaking incessantly, no matter how much oil they applied.

  Sometimes, it was hard for Orion to remember that he was now part of a coven of witches, given how routine his life had become. However, at other times, he was abruptly reminded of this reality. They spoke of cursing entire factions as easily as children talked about their games.

  The distinct lack of fathers around is one such clue, he thought drily. It wasn’t that men weren’t accepted within the coven, as more than one boy ran around the garden, but the structure of the cult was such that only women could ever rise to the upper ranks.

  This resulted in a situation where only men with little ambition ever stuck around. While there were a few of those, families with one mother and one father were much less common than those with a single mother.

  “I believe I might know the cause,” the cook finally said, earning surprised glances. While respected for her service, she was not necessarily important enough to receive such valuable information.

  Going by her grin, she was relishing the attention. As the only mundane mother in a group of witches, she must have often felt sidelined, so knowing something the others didn’t had to feel like vindication.

  Eventually, however, she caved in at the others’ urging, “Usually, we get as much marble honey from the Ranch as we ask for, even if they increase prices close to their festivities, but in the past couple of months, they’ve been very stingy. Now, the Ranch is the premier food producer of the south, so for them to have started cutting back, it means they have received a huge order. And marble honey is apparently an important ingredient in their healing potions.”

  Orion could see that some of the witches had already understood where she was going, but they were gracious enough to allow her the pleasure. “I believe the Greenwood Enclave might be preparing for another period of skirmish with the Ebony Gauntlet. I went looking through our ledgers, and the only times they ever throttled our orders this much were when the elves started fighting with the necromancers.”

  That was very interesting and suggested an acumen in the woman he wouldn’t have thought her to possess. By the surprised looks of the others, Orion wasn’t the only one who had underestimated her.

  Unfortunately, he only knew the basics about those factions. He knew they were major powers within the Cyril Magocracy—the confederation of provinces the coven belonged to—but his attempts to obtain a history book that provided more than just tales of the Moon Goddess had been thwarted by his mother so far.

  Still, he was gradually building a mental map. When the time came for him to participate in actual lessons—and not just the basic skills his mother taught him—he would also gain access to the library, and nothing would hold him back.

  A shift beside him broke his focus. Selene was staring with her pale, faintly luminous eyes, a half-finished petal crown in her lap. “It’s not,” she whispered.

  He frowned. “What’s not?”

  “The fighting that’s coming.” She said, staring at the clear sky as if expecting a thunderstorm to roll by. “It’s not like the past.”

  “Are you saying that the elves and the necromancers will go to war?” he asked, leaning into her space. The Cyril Magocracy was more a loose union of powerful factions than an actual nation, so minor conflict was expected, but full-on war was not. As far as he knew, it had been over a century since the last time.

  Unfortunately, Selene didn’t seem interested in offering any further explanation, as she returned to her flower crown, effectively shutting down the conversation.

  Orion swallowed his curiosity. Past experience warned him that Selene’s cryptic remarks resisted interrogation and often became nonsensical if he pushed harder. And then I’ll be treated to a lecture about being kinder to my friends.

  The bench talk drifted into less useful territory—apparently, the cook fancied a baker known for his muscular arms—and Orion’s interest also shifted.

  In the distance, a pretty witch in sky-blue robes herded a dozen children toward a rack of brooms propped beneath a cedar. Feeling a thrill, he immediately recognized this as the first flight lesson of a new season. Until now, he had always missed the start and only caught the successive lessons, where confident fliers streaked overhead. Today, he might finally get to hear how they defied gravity.

  He rose, brushed wilted grass from his knees, and crossed the lawn at an angle. Selene abandoned her basket without a word and followed, silent as a mouse. Asteria’s eyebrows climbed in surprise when he looked at her for permission, but she gestured her assent. “Don’t bother Madame Thurgood with your questions,” she called after them.

  Bah, as if that would do me any good. She’s probably just going to tell them to believe in themselves.

  “Broom flight,” the witch began, and he hurried forward, not wanting to miss anything, “is one of the oldest skills taught in the coven. A High Priestess was the first to hold the class five centuries ago, but it was a known practice even before that. It is so important, in fact, that anyone who wishes to officially join the Coven at their maturity must have a passing grade in this class.”

  Once she had looked everyone in the eye, she continued. “I shall now tell you the tale of Cassiopeia, the High Priestess who now resides with the Mother Above All. Of how she found the best Silver Pine sapling, lovingly singing to it until it had grown enough to gift her a branch, and used her devotion to the Mother to take flight with her prayer alone.” The witch explained, distributing the other brooms around the class.

  She immediately noticed him sidling up to the group, but seemed amused by his presence. Tapping a finger on her lips, she made it clear that as long as he kept quiet, he’d be allowed to listen in.

  Unfortunately, there were no more brooms for him to grab, so he made do with a nearby branch. That prompted an even brighter smile from the witch, and Orion could almost feel her suppressing the urge to coo.

  Its upper part was as smooth as bone, while its lower body was somewhat thicker, with a few smaller twigs protruding. Overall, it was a reasonably decent approximation.

  The witch mounted her own broom and spoke clearly, “Every night, the moon rises.” The shaft responded with a slow, graceful rise until her boots hovered a handspan above the turf. She pivoted easily, her skirts fluttering at knee height. “Trust the Mother,” she said, “and she will lift you. That’s all there is to it.”

  The older children followed her command, feet astride their brooms. They repeated, “Every night, the moon rises”—some shy, some bold. Brooms wobbled, jittered, or simply lay still. Two shot upward with triumphant laughs.

  When the last had managed to lift off, Orion straddled the stubby stick and inhaled. “Up,” he said. Nothing. The branch might as well have been made of stone. Another try—no movement. Around him, the older Initiates began to move through the air; his frustration rose with it, embarrassing in its intensity. He stepped back from the crowd, feeling his cheeks warm, and slipped behind a hedge.

  Anger rarely solved problems; cold calculation, however, never failed him. Kneeling, he snapped a twig from the nearby bush and began writing into the damp soil.

  “Start with the fundamentals,” he muttered to himself. Just because they are flying doesn’t mean there is no reason behind it.

  To hover, a broom must exert a force equal to its weight. In a world with gravity similar to Earth’s, that means roughly 9.8 newtons per kilogram.

  I should start by calculating the vertical force of the broom system. If I ignore the magical origin of the propulsion, I can just definite it as F_net = F_broom ? m?g, where m is the mass of the rider and the broom and g is the gravitational constant.

  He sketched a little diagram to help him visualize. To calculate F_broom, I need a coefficient to account for the “magic” κ, the channeling frequency vector ω in radians per second, and finally the effective radius from the broom’s axis where the magical “lift” acts, R. That makes it F_broom = κ?ω2?R.

  Selene padded over the grass and crouched beside him, watching the lines form. “Is it a puzzle?” she asked.

  “Sort of,” he answered, adding the net force acceleration. Divide net force by mass: if κ?ω2?R > mg, a is positive and there is lift-off; if equal, you hover; if less, you descend. Now I just need the velocity and height as functions of time. v(t) = v? + a?t and z(t) = z? + v??t + ??a?t2 should do it.

  The class behind the hedge had descended into excited chaos; children were now looping, occasionally tumbling into flowerbeds with soft thuds. Madame Thurgood laughed and encouraged them to test their brooms further.

  Orion set his twig aside, collected his rudimentary broom, and tried something different. He placed his palm on the handle, closed his eyes, and brought every calculation to the fore.

  He pictured vectors, magnitudes, and balanced sums. He sensed a faint, responding hum. Emboldened, he swung his leg over it and murmured, “Rise.”

  The broom nudged upward an inch, then two. The soles of his boots parted from the earth for the span of a heartbeat, just long enough to confirm lift, but not long enough to attract notice, and he willed it down.

  Pride flared into giddy triumph.

  When he turned, Selene stood so close that her breath stirred his collar. Her lips curved into a soft O of surprise; then she pressed a finger against them in a conspiratorial hush. “Secret secret,” she whispered, and danced away toward the pond, petals from her flower crown fluttering behind her.