29 - Secrets

It was a gentle glow. Sunset in a bottle, but not washed out or shaded like stained glass. It was as if the chest had swallowed a star, and the light was leaking out through the crevices.

Theo’s hand was frozen, before he suddenly realised that it might not be safe to stay in physical contact with an unknown magical device, and his fingers and hand retracted back towards his body, right hand cradling his left after it recoiled. Gently examining it, his hand felt fine.

The light started to intensify, and the wood started to separate at the curls, almost breathing in and out as it pulsed brightly. Pieces started to separate and float off of its surface as the glow wrapped around each individual chunk, until it was a vague, honeycomb sphere with a shining point in the centre, gently spinning.

Theo squinted.

It looked like a flat disc in the centre, and an errant thought struck Theo as to what it could be, but he waved it off as it was just random and had no reason behind it

Alan reached for the sphere, and the light turned a deep red as it compressed and shrunk itself almost back into the box it was before. Alan raised his hands, and backed away slightly.

The light returned to a gentle orange-yellow, and started to expand again. Theo reached his hand out towards it, out of curiosity…and it started to separate around his hand, allowing him access to whatever was in the centre.

He reached his hand into the light, and pulled out exactly what he dismissed seconds earlier.

It was a coin.

Similar in size and shape and design to the one Sparrow had given him, although the runework was more detailed, and it felt a whole lot sturdier and powerful.

As he pulled it out, the floating sphere fell apart, now scattered pieces of wood on Alan’s cellar that looked completely mundane, if intricately carved.

Alan looked lost for a moment.

“Well, at least we know that it’s genuinely magical.” Theo helpfully supplied. Alan continued to stare into the remnants of the box.

Something stirred in Theo’s pocket, and the coin that Sparrow had given him had tugged free of the confines of his clothes and was now floating towards the coin in his hand. It bumped into his hand, before lazily orbiting his closed fist. With his other hand, Theo gently poked Alan, getting his attention to turn towards the coin orbital system currently developing in his hand.

Theo cleared his throat. “So, uh, what are we going to do about this?” He opened his hand, and watched as Sparrow’s coin gently settled on the new coin’s surface, so flush it almost looked like a single coin. He poked it, and Sparrow’s coin gently decoupled, doing a few more orbits before returning to its place nestled against the new coin.

“The sensible thing; we shut up and pretend it never happened.” Alan said, slightly forcefully with conviction.

“Why?” Theo asked.

“This kind of shit always attracts attention, and not in a good way. Why do you think I don’t talk about the chest when I boast about the Founders drinking at The Pub? Better our little secret than the reason for a bunch of Guild members to tear this place apart.” Alan half-explained, half-muttered, said with the weary paranoia of someone had made this mistake before (when he was a younger, more trusting man).

“Ah, right.” Theo could sense the story there, and tactfully decided not to inquire as to what had happened (as much as he was curious).

“It looks like it responded to you, so it’d be best for you to hold onto it. Tell this to nobody.” Alan continued. Theo nodded along, about to agree, when he caught himself.

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“…could I tell The Dancing Wind?” Theo felt sheepish, but it was unavoidable. Plus, they looked like they were very good with keeping secrets.

“Why?” Alan was noticeably irritated (and Theo couldn’t blame him, frankly).

Theo clarified. “Because that second coin is theirs.”

“Ah, right.”

---

Alan had eventually agreed on allowing him to tell Sparrow, as long as he didn’t mention where he got the coin from.

Theo had fallen asleep nudging the coins and watching them orbit each other, and he woke up feeling the warmth of one in each hand. His hands were a lot closer together than he remembered, but they felt okay enough.

Rubbing the sleep from his face, he tried to focus on getting ready for his second ever day at the College of Song. First up – Espionage.

With Sparrow.

---

“Hello, you all know who I am. Or at least, you think you know, which is exactly where I want you. Trusting your instincts and assumptions when you shouldn’t be relying on anything similar to that.” Theo wasn’t quite paying attention to Sparrow’s class, as interesting as it was. His brain was pretty pre-occupied with the coins, and the fact that they were in his pocket and he could always feel the tug-of-war happening between them made it hard to concentrate on anything else.

“Today we are going to explore what is truth and what is a lie, and how to straddle the line to the best effect for our purposes. For example, you have half-truths, and things that are technically true, and…”

---

Theo hoped he held onto enough information about deception and the nature of true and false (but he wouldn’t bet on it). He felt like he could have done without the philosophical tangent, but he would (also) chalk that up to the thoughts currently occupying his brain.

He resolved to talk to Sparrow before he left the classroom, but before he had the chance Sparrow had actually called him over, and Theo watched as everyone else left the room, until it was just the two of them.

“Okay, what’s bothering you? I’m not used to you spacing out.” Sparrow asked Theo.

“I wanted to talk to you about that as well.” Theo reached into his pocket, and brought out the two coins, currently joined together.

“That looks like the coin I gave y- what?” Theo’s hands weren’t the steadiest, and Sparrow’s coin started its rotational ritual as Sparrow was lost for words.

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out what it is and why it does this, but all I managed to do was distract myself.” Theo admitted. Sparrow looked at the coins appraisingly, pupils tracing out the looping orbit.

“Interesting. Mind if I hold them?” Sparrow asked, and Theo nodded and passed them the coins.

As soon as they touched their hands, Sparrow’s orbiting coin dropped to the ground with a clatter, and the lustre seemed to disappear from the new one. Still, Sparrow examined them.

“So there’s something else special about you that these coins are reacting to. It’s probably something to do with the Founders, if the fact that my coin can interact so readily with it is an indication.” Sparrow looked at Theo.

“This is just one more thing to keep secret about you.” They sighed, and handed the coins back to Theo. As soon as they touched his hand, Sparrow’s coin started orbiting around the Founder coin again (which is what Theo internally decided to refer to it as).

“Seeing how they react to others, I think it might be best for you to hold onto them. I want you to study them and try to figure out how they work.” Sparrow instructed, and Theo nodded.

“Okay, now go eat lunch. You’ll need the energy soon enough.” And with that, Sparrow patted him on the back and disappeared completely before Theo could even process what had happened.

Shrugging (because it wasn’t like his life wasn’t absurd already), Theo reached for the bread and cheese in his bag and walked to the park, trying to put this out of his mind. He succeeded (which wasn’t evidence of his ability to focus, but rather an indictment of how absurd his life had become).

---

Theo had found Drew’s figure (which, admittedly wasn’t too difficult given his size) among the courtyard, and they had sat down to have a lunch together for the second day in a row. And once again for the second day in a row, Theo slightly followed behind Drew.

It wasn’t difficult to find the where the Physical Combat class was held either – it was a large, sandy arena inside the College of Song. Theo started to wonder if they had any obstacle courses as well here, and whether or not he could have done that training at the College of Song instead. Shaking that thought out of his head, he tried to focus on the fact that Sasha aka The Silent Fist (depending on familiarity) wasn’t in the area.

Or at least, Theo didn’t know if she was until Finn let out a high-pitched scream, as a hand had grasped his leg and pulled it into the ground. He managed to shake it free, but emerging from the cracked ground like a volcano was Sasha.

“Welcome to Physical Combat.” She looked completely nonplussed, which only made everyone’s disturbed surprise even more noticeable in contrast.

“I will be teaching you how to fight and survive and win. I will not be teaching you how to fight fair, make of that what you will.” Sasha casually brushed the dirt off her arms, and shook it out of her hair. It came off a little too easily, almost like she was on friendly terms with the Earth.

“Before we can begin learning how to fight better, we must know how well we fight already. As such, there will be a series of matches, for everyone to showcase what they do and do not know. Use any and every advantage and ability you have to win.” Sasha started to count heads and do mental matchups, before Drew started to interrupt, and Rowena raised her hand.

With an amused glint in her eyes, Sasha raised her finger to her lips at Drew, and motioned for Rowena to say what she meant to say.

“If none of us hold back, won’t that mean that potentially dangerous magic might be thrown around?” Rowena asked. Sasha nodded, with a slight curl on her lips.

“You are correct, Rowena. If this was unsupervised and you all were to brawl then there would be a chance of death or serious injury. However,” Sasha paused, mumbling something under her breath as the whole area started to move as she controlled the dirt. It rippled outwards like a wave, before dissipating into fractal shapes that slunk back into the ground.

“However, I am here. And I promise that all of you will walk out of here today without an injury.” The slight grin had left her mouth, and Theo saw the conviction etched into her face (which definitely made him feel a little better, even as the slowly dawning realisation that he would actually have to fight people made him feel worse).

Sasha turned to Drew. “Yes?” She asked. He cleared his throat.

“What will be done about those with internal magic and those without?” Drew asked, but before he could go into detail about his worries Sasha had started nodding and responded.

“Something to definitely consider.” Sasha clapped her hands, and took in a deep breath.

“Internal Magic users this side! Non-Internal Magic users that side!” Sasha shouted, splitting the class (slightly) in two.

Drew was surprised when Theo was the only person to join him.