Chapter 71.2

Seeing Chloé’s enthusiasm, Tessa couldn’t help but smile. “Next, we want to test the various limiters that support, or hinder, the flow of magic. The easiest way to do this is to form that same connection again, and then try to slowly pinch it off.” Tessa straightened her back and extended her hand. Within seconds, she once again held a small handful of lightning. Before commencing the next step, she unexpectedly caught herself laughing as she watched the sparks leaping to and fro.

My magic’s never been this lively before.

It was almost endearing the way the magic felt as it skipped and danced between her fingers. She pictured those silly little plasma balls she used to love as a kid, the ones that shot electricity at your fingers when you touched the glass, and lost herself in thoughts of what might be possible with her new magic.

“Did you start yet?” Chloé asked. “It looks the same to me.”

Tessa shook herself back to her senses. “Sorry, lost my train of thought there for a moment.”

“I’m telling you, it’s because of the coffee,” Imani muttered.

Turning to look at the scribe, Tessa narrowed her eyes with a facade of ill intent. “Don’t make me shock you, Imani. I have that power now.”

“Girl, you shock me and I’ll slap you into next week. Today was wash day! I didn’t spend two hours breathing new life into this gorgeous mane only for you to fuck it up with a handful of static electricity.” Both girls playfully glared at each other before breaking out into laughter.

Now ready to continue, Tessa turned her attention back to her magic. She once again pictured her tattoo, expanding her focus to include another image. The flowers, already humming with life, joined together with the skull of a cat that sat beneath them. Smoke drifted out of the skull’s eyes, quickly solidifying into the stems of the flowers, and the expertly crafted runes woven into the image flared to life.

With the connection established, Tessa clamped down on the magic to restrict it. The bolts of energy in her hand gradually thinned, eventually becoming tiny threads of magic no wider than a strand of spider’s silk. When she splayed her fingers further apart, the electricity seemed to vanish altogether; still present, it simply lacked the strength to form connections between her digits. The urge to weave her telekinesis into this tapestry was strong, but she knew the importance of taking things one at a time.

“The magic is still present, I’ve just lessened it considerably,” Tessa said.

“Got it. I need to throttle the magic so that water continues appearing, but at a slower rate.”

It only took a few minutes for Chloé to master this next step as well. She slowed the appearance of water to a tiny trickle, then after another of Tessa’s demonstrations, proved she was capable of doing the opposite as well. Further testing proved more difficult; Tessa’s next step was layering telekinesis over her electricity, while Chloé needed to connect her new magic with her inherent magical connection to Purgatory.

“Your mom used ice magic, right?” Chloé asked. “You said the connection for Purgatory allowed her to harness its entropy and freeze the water?”

“Yup, exactly.”

“Huh.”

“Is that not how your abilities work?” Imani asked.

“It might be? To be honest, I’ve never used them that way before. I’ve mostly focused on my ability to go invisible, phase through things, that kind of stuff. I’m just not sure how much of that is because of my connection to Purgatory specifically, and how much of that is a byproduct of the way I’m kinda suspended between planes.”

Tessa paused to think over the situation. “Maybe you should try running all those tests again, but the other way around. Focus exclusively on your connection to Purgatory and try to isolate it.”

Chloé cocked her head in confusion. “What would that even look like?”

“Well, it’s entropy, right?” Tessa reminded her. “I imagine it would just sap the warmth from the air around you.”

“Right, okay. That makes sense.” Determination filled Chloé’s eyes, and she refocused on her new task. Her body shimmered, its transparency flickering as her hair detached from gravity. It floated upwards as it lost its color, the naturally brown hue turning ghastly white. Life drained from her skin, her face taking on the sickly pallor of a banshee, before she opened her eyes. A piercing, lime green glow cascaded across her cheeks, casting her in a sinister light completely at odds with her usual, kind persona. Her breath froze as it left her body, releasing with it a wave of frigid energy that chilled Tessa to the bone.

Seconds later, it all vanished.

“Did it work?” Chloé asked cheerfully, blind to the haunting demeanor she’d just assumed.

“Uh, yeah, I’d say so.” Behind them, Imani held up one of the towels they’d been using to absorb Chloé’s summoned water—it was now completely frozen and as stiff as a board.

“Whoa, that’s so cool!” Chloé gasped.

“For what it’s worth, Chloé,” Tessa started, “it was also kinda freaky. Like, full blown horror movie ghost and shit.”

“Dang, really?” The ghost girl giggled playfully to herself. “Well, I promise to use this power only for good. As funny as it would be to leap out from your mirror or whatever.”

Tessa forced a laugh to mask the shiver running through her. She’d always been freaked out by ghosts, and the fear had grown considerably after learning that magic and monsters were real. Thankfully, Chloé wasn’t actually a ghost, but that didn’t stop her from being extra susceptible to Chloé’s invisible antics.

With the preliminary tests done, Chloé and Tessa continued exploring the limits and capabilities of their magic. Chloé learned she could manifest water anywhere within several feet of herself, not just in her palm or at her fingertips, and slowly improved the rate at which she could summon. Much of her practice revolved around merging her various talents—freezing water into various shapes, using her planar tremors and control over gravity to suspend them, eventually even firing off shards of ice while muttering “Pew!” under her breath.

After remembering that water and electricity were particularly bad to mix together, Tessa moved to the other side of the viewing area. Her tests initially focused on linking her connection to the Aether with her telekinesis, practicing all the different ways she was able to exert control over the erratic, lightning based magic now coursing through her tattoos. This new magic was incredibly unpredictable, and while they’d compensated by partially enhancing Tessa’s telekinetic abilities, such control only extended so far. She eventually found that the best way to guide her new magic was not to force it, but to guide it down certain paths by paving the way. By adding additional runes to her three switchblades, she successfully retrofitted them to serve as miniature lightning rods. It wasn’t long before she had powerful bolts of magic arcing between her knives as she manipulated them through the air.

Of course, while her display riled up Amara’s hopes of exciting new sparring possibilities, Tessa’s true interests lay elsewhere. As invested as she was in self-defense, her choice to pursue this line of magic was rooted in her desire to bypass the magical disruption of technology. As such, once she felt comfortable manipulating her new magic, she eagerly dug into her bag of circuit boards and disposable phones.

The rest of her night was spent practicing the applications of runes to modern day electronics. Initial tests involved standard runes, much like the ones on her knives, but later tests involved weaving bits of Aether magic into the designs. Her goal was to find the most efficient symbols to layer tiny channels of magic into the circuitry in hopes of removing the interference altogether.

Her efforts, of course, were continually interrupted by the antics of her friends. The friendly sparring between Nick, Vee, and Amara only lasted so long. Chloé eventually joined in once she felt confident with her abilities, and they had a blast flying after each other while pretending to fight, but their melodramatic monologues proved incredibly distracting. It wasn’t long before they started begging Tessa to join them, despite her repeated insisting that lightning wasn’t exactly something she wanted to mess around with.

Eventually, the six of them reunited in the center of the spring floor. Those of them excited to mess around had tired themselves out, and Vee had already made several laps around the building to repair all the damage caused by various explosions, claws, and errant flying icicles.

Tessa sat beside her bag of electronics, currently in the middle of applying her first test to a disposable phone. Beside her, Amara and Vee sat side-by-side, leaning against each other as they talked and idly scrolled on their phones. Nick had reverted back to his human form, and was quite excited to learn that his transformation was significantly smaller this close to the new moon. Chloé and Imani were mostly talking about the various applications of Chloé’s magic, and how it felt being channeled through her unique physiology. This dynamic, Tessa found, was far more preferable than the rambunctious action from earlier.

“Ha, check it out!” Amara said, showing off her phone to everyone. “Sofia is putting together a board about photosynthesis, and it’s so cute!”

“Wow, that’s pretty well done. Did her parents help her out?” Vee asked, idly scratching Amara’s back.

“I think with some of the more technical aspects of the presentation?” Amara said. “But those flowers were all her, she was showing me some of them last weekend. She’s so creative!”

Amara returned to scrolling through her socials, at which point Vee turned to Tessa. “Speaking of science projects, how’s your phone experiment coming?”

“Slow and frustrating,” Tessa grumbled. “I’m trying to create runic channels that guide the magic safely through the tech instead of disrupting it, but there’s not a lot of space to work with. I figured out how to use my new magic as a soldering iron, but I don’t exactly have a lot of fine control. I might need to get myself some better tools.”

“Why do we need extra phones anyway?” Amara asked.

“I don’t think the point is the phone itself, Amara,” Nick clarified. “She’s just using them as a way to test different types of magical alteration. Although, it’s not like there would be any downsides to having a few extra phones on hand in case of an emergency…”

Imani shuffled closer to the group and joined in the conversation. “Plus, think of the applications if Tessa can perfect this! Imagine a world where we add telecommunication runes into the magic circles, and the next time you have to visit another plane, you can call us whenever you like!”

“You’re also a shapeshifter, Amara,” Chloé said as she floated overhead. “What happens if you need to, like, go undercover or something? You wouldn’t be able to use your actual phone, and having a spare that’s magic resistant would be super helpful!”

“Okay, but magic resistant doesn’t mean fire resistant, does it?” Amara summoned a series of embers and made them dance around. “The perfect phone, in my opinion, is one I could teleport with, but I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“How does your teleportation work?” Chloé asked.

“It… um… Well, I just vanish from where I am and appear somewhere else.”

“That’s how all teleportation works, Amara,” Tessa mumbled sarcastically. “I think she’s curious if you can carry stuff with you when you teleport.”

“Ooh, I’ve never tried, actually. We should test it out! Can I borrow one of those phones?”

Tessa’s tattoos lit up and she floated a spare phone over to Amara. “I like how you say borrow like I’m going to get it back.”

“You might!” Amara protested as she jumped to her feet. Without waiting for a response, she leapt high into the air and summoned her wings. Once she’d leveled out a dozen feet above the floor, she focused her magic and disappeared in a blaze of hellfire. The intense heat briefly washed over Tessa, who’d paused to watch the demonstration, eager to see what happened to the phone. The instant Amara vanished, another blaze appeared on the other side of the building, and Amara reappeared as they receded. Amara landed with a smile, then reached into her pocket to retrieve the disposable phone. Instead of a phone, however, she held aloft a charred piece of plastic that had been compressed to the size of a golf ball.

“Huh. Well, I guess that’s why they call them burner phones, right?”

Everyone but Chloé groaned at the terrible joke. As Amara rejoined Vee on the floor, she tossed the charred remains to Tessa, who engaged her magic to avoid touching the smoking husk. “I assumed this would happen, but it’s good to have proof, I guess.”

Tessa turned the plastic around a few times before tossing it in her backpack. As she turned her attention back to her amateur runic soldering, the rest of the group returned to their own idle musings.

Several minutes later, Amara shot forward without warning. “Oh shit!”

“What’s wrong?” Vee asked.

“It’s Camilla! She just texted me to ask if I’m coming over this weekend!”

“That’s the cousin that doesn’t like you, right?” Nick shuffled closer to steal a peek at Amara’s phone.

“She’s not my cousin, she’s my great grandniece!” Amara shook her head. “That’s not important. She’s hanging out with some friends, and she wants me to come with! That’s gotta mean she’s warming up to me, right?”

“That’s so exciting!” Vee eagerly hugged Amara as the demon busied herself with a response.

“I told you all that worrying was for nothing,” Nick added.

“It was not for nothing, and I’m still worried! She was so mean to Vee the other day, and I can’t think of why she’d be acting differently now. What if it’s… I dunno, some kind of mean girl trap?”

“Camilla didn’t particularly strike me as the petty type, dear,” Vee said.

“What could she even do?” Tessa floated her current project up in the air, feeding some magic into it as she talked. “You’re a nigh-invincible demon, it’s not like she’s going to get her friends to beat you up or whatever.”

“I’m not worried for my safety, Tess,” Amara grumbled. “I just want my family to like me. I’m scared I did something to insult Camilla without realizing it, but what? She’s been acting weird since the instant we first met! Unless my mom did something, but… I dunno. Hopefully this is all water under the bridge soon.”

Amara spent the next several minutes panicking about her upcoming hangout with Camilla. The conversation shifted to her family for a while afterwards, but it wasn’t long before everyone decided to pack up for the night.

While Tessa was thrilled with her new tattoos, she was less excited about the progress she’d made on her tech experiments. Most of her tests had failed, and although she tried to frame those failures as helpful pieces of information, it didn’t make the setbacks any less frustrating. She tried to practice some of the positive affirmations Nick always encouraged, shifting her focus to all the happiness her friends found tonight, but she’d never been a very meditative person.

By the time she collapsed in her bed, she’d failed to distract herself. She fell asleep with dozens of half-formed ideas about how she might fix her tech problem, each more nonsensical than the last.