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On the day of their first official lesson, Emma rode the bus to July’s house straight from school. While on the bus, she stared wide-eyed at a woman a few rows ahead of her, who was wearing a black bolero hat and carrying a gray rat in both hands. A witch! Emma had heard there were more witches in Albany than Hanover. She wasn’t sure at first, but when she looked closely, she saw that the rat—not the woman—had an aura, an orangeish-yellow one. An immortal! Was this dangerous? Should she tell July or Miss Desavi? She wanted to go over and greet them. Hi, I’m a magic thing, too! But before she could decide whether or not to do so, the woman exited the bus. Emma tried hard to memorize what she looked like.
When the bus came to her stop, Emma was the first one off, and she found July there waiting, looking every bit as fancy as she had last time.
“How was the trip?” July asked.
“Good. I saw a witch!”
“Did you? How do you know?”
“She had a Familiar. I think. It was a rat.” Her tutor led the way down the sidewalk toward her house, and Emma followed, stamping on dried leaves whenever she came across them. “I thought it would be a black cat.”
“Familiars come in lots of shapes and sizes: cats. Rats.”
“Bats?” Emma suggested, and July nodded.
“Sometimes. It usually depends on the witch’s personality. Or the Familiar’s. Did the rat have an aura?”
“Yeah, but the lady didn’t.” She frowned, afraid she might have guessed wrong. “Does that mean she wasn’t a witch?”
“No, it sounds like she was. Witches are still mortal, so they don’t have auras of their own.” They came to a narrow two-story house painted a light blue-gray, and July led her up the walkway. Emma didn’t notice the line of little white rocks by the sidewalk until she stumbled over it, creating a gap.
“Oh. Sorry. What—”
“Careful,” July said sharply, gesturing for her to step back. She obeyed silently and watched her tutor kneel on the ground, visibly rigid, to rearrange the rocks back into a solid barrier. When she was satisfied, she got back to her feet and glanced at Emma, who was now staring down at her own sneakers, no longer as cheerful and talkative as before.
“Sorry,” she mumbled again, frustrated with herself for messing up so early on in the lesson. Frustrated but not surprised.
“It was an accident. No harm done.” When she chanced a look at July, her expression had softened. “This is actually one of my home security systems.”
“The rocks?” Emma asked, confused.
“Yes. It’s salt. There are lots of immortals who can’t or won’t go near it. Some avoid it because it hurts them. Others physically can’t cross a solid line of salt. It’s a natural purifier, so it repels negative energy. Or so I hear.”
As she followed July up the steps and into the house, Emma mused, “Their food must be so bad.”
“What?” July asked, shutting and locking the door behind them.
“The immortals who don’t like salt. If they can’t go near it, then they definitely can’t eat it. So the food they make is probably gross.” Maybe they only ate desserts? She could live with that.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” July admitted. As she knelt to take off her boots, she added, “Could you take your shoes off, please?”
“Okay.” Emma distractedly toed her shoes off while still trying to take in as much of July’s house as possible. It was smaller than her family’s new house, but everything inside seemed a lot fancier somehow. There was a couch faced away from the front door and two armchairs across from it. It was all swirly and antique-y, very detailed and expensive-looking. The house also smelled faintly of peppermint, though not as much as July herself. As she slipped off her second shoe and looked up again, she saw a gray cat with orange eyes standing in the hallway, watching her. But right as Emma noticed it, it wandered up the stairs and out of sight.
“Don’t worry, she’ll come back out once we’ve settled in,” July assured her. She nodded toward the next room, and Emma followed her lead into the kitchen. It was surprisingly modern compared to the rest of what she’d seen. On the right, there was an attached dining room, including an appropriately antique-looking table with matching chairs. On the wall beyond the table, there stood two ornate china cabinets, one full of carefully-arranged porcelain tea sets, the other displaying a collection of small, hand-labeled tins.
July left her side and went into the kitchen to take a steaming kettle off the stove, so Emma turned her attention in that direction instead. A silver tray on the island held a tea set that was glazed powder blue with silver lining the top and bottom edges. She came closer for a better look but was sure not to touch anything. That was one of the instructions her parents had given her in preparation for this meeting.
“So,” her tutor began, bustling around the kitchen, probably making tea, “how much of my guide did you get through?”
Emma blanched at the thought of the very large, very imposing booklet July had given her on their first meeting, the one that was currently in her backpack and weighing it down significantly. A Seer’s Guide to Immortals, the cover read, and then, July Morgan. She knew she was supposed to be reading it over the past couple of weeks, and she really had tried—but it was just so boring. She normally liked reading about magic stuff, but this was more like a textbook than a story, and she could barely get through a single paragraph without completely zoning out.
“Uh, some,” she mumbled noncommittally, eyes trained on the shining countertop.
“That’s not a very convincing answer,” July pointed out, and Emma shrank even further.
“Sorry. I tried. I’m just not a fast reader.”
“You did mention that before.” After taking a moment to set a timer by the stove, she came back to the island to fold her hands on the counter in front of her. “Maybe I should’ve realized that having you study on your own wouldn’t be the most effective way of teaching you.”
“Sorry,” Emma repeated quietly, afraid July might just give up on her if she couldn’t get her act together and be a better student.
“It’s all right. Everyone has their own methods of learning; what works best for me won’t necessarily be best for you. Since these lessons are for your benefit, I want to tailor them to your needs.”
Oh. It made sense when she explained it like that, but it was still a surprisingly generous thing to hear from a teacher. Maybe it was easier since it was just the two of them. Maybe one-on-one lessons like this were what Emma needed for school too.
“So,” July continued, “do you have any ideas of what would help you? What’s the best way for you to remember things?”
“I dunno. I guess talking about it is better than just listening or reading,” Emma answered tentatively.
“I’ll keep that in mind, then. For now, why don’t we start with the basics?” When the timer started to beep, her tutor turned it off and continued her tea-making process, all of which was fascinating to Emma, who had only ever seen tea made in a microwaved mug. While she was pouring hot water into two of the little blue teacups, then dumping it back out into the sink, July asked, “Did you get to the part of the guide that explains why Seers exist?”
“Yeah.” Only slightly distracted, Emma shrugged out of her backpack and wriggled the guide out to lay it on the counter and turn to the Where Do Seers Come From? section. “It sounds like it happens because we had an immortal somewhere way back in our family. Right?”
“That’s the simplest way of putting it, yes. You and I both have a relative somewhere in the past who was a magical being of some kind.” Now that everything was set up, July carried the tea service over to the dining room table, gesturing for Emma to follow. “At least that’s what I’ve gathered from my conversations with Valen on the subject.”
“But doesn’t that mean we’re part-immortal?” Emma asked as she seated herself at the table, curling her legs up underneath her.
“No,” her tutor said quickly, frowning. It seemed she spent more time frowning than smiling in general. “Seers are mortal and completely human. That’s the reason we don’t have auras ourselves. The relative in question might have been fifty or a hundred generations back. Not enough to make you anything other than human, just enough to pass on a hint of their magic.”
“Does that mean my parents are magic, too?”
“It means at least one of them has magic ancestry, yes. But it’s dormant in them. You’re the unlucky one who has to deal with its active effects.”
“But…” Emma fidgeted absently, her eyes lingering on July’s hands as she poured each of them a cup of tea. “It’s not my fault or anything, right?”
“No, of course not. What would make you think that?”
“My parents think so. I think. They really don’t like any of this. They’d probably get mad if you told them we have magic blood.” She was still dealing with her own conflict of excitement and nerves about the whole thing, but either way, she found her new circumstances fascinating. Her parents disagreed and preferred not to talk about it.
“Well, it’s true whether they like it or not,” July said plainly, sitting up straight to sip her tea, and Emma suppressed a guilty smile. She couldn’t argue with her parents directly, but she liked the idea that her tutor was willing to. “Maybe they should be hearing this too so they can understand your situation.”
“Maybe.” That seemed unlikely to happen, though, considering how unenthused they were on the subject. Not to mention, they didn’t seem to like July a whole lot. Resting her elbows on the table, she blew steam away from her cup and noted, “The book says why we’re like this, but it doesn’t say why immortals are after us. Like, why us especially?”
“That’s because the reasons are hard to state objectively.” July’s frown wasn’t easing in the slightest. “It depends on which of them you ask. I’ve met a few—very few—who were just interested in toying with me. They’re not hostile at first, but they get that way if you don’t cooperate. Unfortunately, most of them are after the same thing.”
“The soul thing?” Emma asked, absently grabbing a sugar cube from a bowl on the tray, then dissolving it in her tea with a tiny spoon. “Are ours special somehow?”
“The magic in our blood makes them more valuable, presumably.” Her tutor shrugged, somewhere between disgust and resignation. “I do think part of it is about the chase and proving they have power over us. Beyond that…it’s my understanding that Seers’ souls taste better than others.”
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