Glazing a few times at Alex, who just waved him off, Blake finally ran out of their dorm. He ran over to the art guild, going into a classroom currently not in use. As he entered, he saw a red hair guy, he knew as Dale, sitting by a desk, talking to Leon who was as calm and collected as always. He gave Blake one of his charming gentlemen smiles and gestured for him to sit down by a desk close by the board.

“I was surprised when I heard you were still in school, considering that you were a second-year last year,” Blake said.

Leon chuckled,” Yes, officially I have graduated, but Vale academy along with Elan academy has a special “study” year for witches. It allows us to be hired as mentors who are supposed to teach the younger generation about magic. This year, many of us are suppose to teach the basics to shifters as well so many stayed behind to earn some money before we move on.”

“I thought Dale was the only one who would be taught magic.”

“Yes, he is the only one who wants to be taught to use magic. The others are just being taught to recognize it and defend against it naturally.”

“Hide in a car?” Blake asked, smirking at Leon’s surprised expression. “Jaxon’s mother Mya told me.”

Leon chuckled,” I can see entire lessons being dedicated to witches throwing spells at shifters who are supposed to run and hide in cars.”

“So, are we going to be taught more fire magic?”

Leon shook his head,” No, I along with the other teachers have been discussing the matter. Many have years of experience but you two are complete novices. We have allowed you to jump ahead but all that has resulted in is-“

Grabbing onto Blake’s hair, Blake couldn’t help but to flush in shame. “-to allow you to stumble on basic magic. When Dale here came forward, requesting to learn magic. We decided that a novice class needed to exist and I volunteered to teach it.”

“Which means?” Blake asked, but Dale just rolled his eyes.

“It means that we are practically children who need to be taught how to read and spell.”

“He has a point. I have tested Dale on his knowledge and he has some basic ones, far more than you do-“ Blake grimaced when he heard Leon’s words. It seems that Dale already was a step ahead of him. “But I still think that it’s better to be taught as a witch not gain knowledge as an outsider.

All that said, Leon cleared his throat. “So, have you figured out the deal with the words spoken in spells?

“Mirrored incantation,” Dale said with a shrug, and Blake glared at him. Showoff, though he had no idea what that meant.

“Exactly, an incantation needs to be mirrored in order to work properly. It can work with focus and a lot of power if you say the word in the correct order but it will not be as strong as if you mirror the word,” Leon pulled out a candle, putting it on the table.

“For example, arsi.”

Nothing seems to happen, “That was the Latin word for fire. Now, let me mirror it.”

“Isra.”

The candle lit up. “See? Why do we need to mirror the words?”

Blake wanted to slam his head down on the table when he heard Dale reply. Is he the only one who is clueless? How is Dale a novice?

“Because magic comes from a mirrored world. One at the opposite of ours. By mirroring the words it allows us to summon magic.”

“Exactly, but it doesn’t work with every language,” Leon blew out the candle and stepped back.

“Erif.”

Nothing happened, and Leon looked up at his two students. “Do you know why?”

Blake tensed, fearing that he would hear Dale’s voice again but nothing came. He dared to look over at Dale who just shook his head. Looking down on the candle he frowned. So English doesn’t work, why would Latin- “Is it because Latin is old?”

“Exactly, let me use an older version of fire in English. In old English, fire was called fyr.”

“Ryf.”

The candle slowly flickered to life, glowing dimly. “Some words might work in modern English if it is close enough to it’s old counterparts but it is mostly just easier to use the old language instead.”

“Then why use Latin?” Blake asked.

“It is mostly easier if all of the witches use the same language. That way it would be easier to teach magic incantations in other countries. Though, there is some deviation. In India, they use Sanskrit though interestingly Sanskrit is already mirrored. Most likely because the language was taught to them by the gods. In Africa they use Ancient Egyptian, in the middle east they can use Farsi, Aramaic, Sumerian, Arabic, or Hebrew. Though Arabic and Hebrew are the most common. We also have archaic Chinese in Asia and some native American languages in America. Frankly, only in Europe have we united under one language.”

“Really?”

“Yes, in the other continents the witches are more divided and have no common alliance. We have tried to reach out to them, but we are mostly just polite neighbors.”

“Why? I thought that witches had far better relationships internationally than the normal world,” Dale said with a frown and for once Blake felt that he had a better grip on the subject than he.

“the way Denesha speaks of us I would say it has something to do with who has the right to learn magic. Who was the first and has the authority to speak for all the witches? African blood seems to be a large part of it,” Blake straighten his back a little when Leon nodded.

“That is one of the reasons, but also which parts have the greatest sources of magic. The reason why old languages work in incantation is that they were created in a time with more magic, but for the last thousands of years, the magic of the world has faded. Only a few sources, called Nexuses, imbue our world with magic. Africa has some of the largest ones, second to that is Asia, especially India, China, and Japan. South America and North America come third, Arabia comes forth, Australia next and last is-” Leon point at himself. “ Europe. We mostly only get very small points instead of great nexuses. The world tree is one of those points. The greater the nexus, the more people are born with magic. In Europe naturally born witches come from supernatural bloodlines. We can only get magic that way, but in Africa and Asia they get new human-blooded witches each day. That is the difference in power.”

“Is that a reason why the witch covens of other continents are more divided? The more power, the more rivalry?” Dale asked.

“Yes, the covens of Asia and Africa are powerful but have over a millennium waged war with each other, often over the possession of the nexuses and the new witches they give birth to. The result is ages-long bloodbath. That kind of bloodshed leaves scars and trust in short supply. They won’t unite because they are too busy fighting for dominance and to be honest, with a nexus on their side, they won’t need to unite. Europeans were different, we needed to unite to protect ourselves from Christianity. Without stable nexuses, we needed to find other sources of magic, and having children with supernatural creatures was the easiest way. This means that communication and diplomacy became very important for our survival,” Leon explained.

“If Europe is so weak then why don’t the other clans want to cooperate with us? We aren’t a threat.”

“Because we have some similarities with our historical, normal counterparts. When the international witches fought, they left important artifacts abandoned and unguarded. Dangerous objects. Some witches families in Europe, such as the Graycrests, specialized in finding those objects and locked them away in a safe place. We have a treasure chamber in Elan coven with hundred of dangerous artifacts taken from other countries.”

“So you stole them,” Blake said, his words seem to cut deep as Leon flinched.

“Yes, we started to give some of them back during the last century but,” Leon sighed, rubbing his temples like he had been there. “Most of the objects are dangerous for a reason and when they were given back, they were misused by the foreign covens who wanted more power. The China floods that killed over a million people, the Asian flue that killed 14 000 people in 1958, The Bhola cyclone which killed 1970, The Haiyuan Earthquake in 1920 that killed around 200 000 people are just a few of the incidents caused by the ordeal.”

“Every time something bad happens, we are blamed for it despite they being the one who misused the objects. Of course, there has been plenty of successes such as no misuse in India and almost none in Africa and South America which is why we haven’t fully stopped giving them back, though we still have some artifacts left that we consider outside their rights such as godly artifacts.”

“I’m guessing that hasn’t gone over well.”

“No, India has in the last century united under one coven. Not that differently from Europe and has become one of the strongest, if not the strongest, alliance of covens in the world which means that they have made a strong push to get their artifacts back. We are still a bit wary of them considering the bad reputation of Asuras and Devas, but I am suspecting that we soon will have no choice to bend to their will. We don’t want war in Europe and those artifacts are the only thing that is worth fighting for. Many of the European covens are in the opinion of us just giving the artifacts back and let them do what they want with them, leaving Europe out of it. If they want the responsibility then let them have it and bear the consequences of their actions.”

Letting out a sigh, Leon blew out the candle and gave them a smile. “That was a quick lesson in the history witches and basic of incantations. Are there any final questions before we move on?”

Blake raised his hand, unsure if he should or not. Leon just smiled. “Yes?”

“Why is magic fading? You mentioned before that they are fading but why?”

Leon seemed to hesitate for a while before he shook his head. “We aren’t sure. Many have theories, of course, but none has answers. Once the entire world was filled with magic, everything from the water to the air was imbued with it but something happen. It just seemed to… Stop. Then it slowly drained as we used it. We, European witches, have studied the phenomenon and think that even the nexuses are slowly fading, but the witches of the other continent say that it isn’t so and refuses to allow us access to the nexuses.”

“Denial?” asked Dale.

“Most likely. If this continues. There will be no magic left of the world,” Leon suddenly glanced at Blake. “Though I suspect Ahriman might be a better judge of that. This most likely is a question only to be answered on the higher plane. We have asked some of the gods, most requests were followed with great prizes and the answer was the same. Something is wrong among the anterions. Only the archons have access to the anterions but archons are elusive at best and dangerous as worst. We haven’t been able to make a contact with them until now.”

“And Ahriman is really bad at giving answers,” Blake sighed.

Leon let out a laugh. “So, you have noticed. Yes, I doubt that we will get a conclusive answer. We can only study and maybe find a secondary source of magic if this goes on. The Europeans solution is magical bloodline but as you can expect, that means that we are greatly limited in number and not everyone is strong enough in each generation to be able to use magic so it is a gamble.”

Leon once again glance at Blake but this time, his eyes showed something else. A hint of wonder, and maybe a sliver of fear. “An interesting piece of information though. That portal you created when you were younger.”

“When I was attacked and opened it to heal myself?”

“Yes, we have studied the place and it has become a well-kept secret but that place… has turned into a nexus.”