There was nothing Val loved more than experimenting with, well, everything. She had dreams of one day writing a book about her discoveries and innovations in various fields of magic, but that was a very distant dream of hers. A dream she was slowly inching towards as her notebook gradually filled with all of what she managed to achieve.

She dived into everything from spells, to runes, and even wards and talismans. She wanted to try her hand at everything, but she was finding it difficult to do that when she stared at the empty section of her notebook.

Alchemy and rituals.

The former was a pain to learn, and those who excelled in alchemy were either dead or too rich and busy to give her a few moments of their time to answer some of her questions. Alchemists were notoriously stuck-up and hard to get ahold of, and alchemy was notoriously hard to learn so she was unlucky there, too.

Rituals on the other hand...

They're simply abhorrent.

Val would never want to meet anyone who'd be willing to perform a ritual. Learning about them was one thing, but actually offering sacrifices and one's own blood was another. Besides, rituals are never anything good. If they weren't used to curse someone, then they were used to bend people's will and find out things that they have no right in knowing. Everything about them was terrible.

There was nothing redeeming about rituals, so their section in the notebook would probably remain blank forever.

But Val tried not to think too much about the blank pages, and instead she decided to focus on something else as she placed three pieces of papers with sigils and symbols drawn on them. Even wards were depicted there as she looked over them. Her goal was to figure them out before she could see if she could combine them, and as her hand brought one of the papers closer, the door opened, blowing them away.

She often loved to study in abandoned buildings, but this one was her favorite, and only one person knew about this place other than her.

"Val, I need help."

She blinked watching her blond friend close the rickety door behind him, giving her a quick apology when he saw that her papers flew away due to the gust of wind that entered with him, and he immediately picked the two papers up and placed them back in front of her.

Smiling gratefully at him, she tilted her head curiously. "What do you need help with?"

There was something that was making her friend nervous as he took a seat across from her, and while Aubrey came from a very wealthy family, it often amazed her how unfazed he was by many things that would offend or shock people of his social status. However, he was always just so unbothered by everything.

But now was one of the rare times that he seemed bothered, and that worried her a little.

That's when Aubrey told her something for the first time. "I can't cast spells."

"What do you mean you can't cast spells?"

Those words shocked her, but somehow it made his strange mannerisms finally make sense. He always walked towards things to grab them instead of just spelling them to his hand, and he often used candles and lanterns whenever it got dark. Val had always thought it was just some of his many idiosyncrasies, but now she realized that this wasn't the case.

But how could that be possible? It just never happened.

"I just can't. Nothing happens when I do." He explained to her before lifting his hand up as if to show her. "Look, I'll try to summon some source of light."

Val watched how perfectly his hands moved on its way to cast a spell, but the moment the magic surged in his hand, everything stopped and nothing happened. Wryly, he bowed his head at her as if he was done with a little show and tonelessly grumbled. "Ta-da!"

There was something about what just happened that was fascinating to her, and she scooted closer to him and held his hand with the ball-like source of light that she produced after arriving here following her. She took it for granted, but it was something Aubrey could never do.

With his hand in hers, she traced his palm and told him to do it again.

The same thing happened, which was nothing, and the spell to produce light was one of the simplest spells to ever exist. People use it on a near-daily basis, and magic was so ingrained in their lives that it made the thought of someone like Aubrey existing to be strange, unthinkable. How did he live all this time with unusable magic?

"I have never heard, or seen, anything like this before." She told him in amazement as she let go of his hand, it boggled her mind a little because he did have magic. It was there, and she felt it. He just couldn't do anything with it. Her gaze still didn't leave his hand as she stared at it with wonder. "Your magic really is powerful, though."

That remark of hers might be true, but it didn't change the fact that she could easily overpower him anyway because his powerful magic is useless.

But there is a possibility that it isn't entirely so.

"You know, I think I did cast a spell once." He told her looking back at his hand trying not to be too hopeful about that. Maybe it was a coincidence, but it was too specific to be one. When Val leaned closer in interest, he knew she wanted him to elaborate more. "Um, so, I am learning alchemy and I tried making a healing potion-"

Her eyes bugged out of her eyes. "You're doing alchemy and you didn't tell me about it?"

"No, no, I mean yes!" He whined defending himself from Val whacking him with her notebook multiple times in her annoyance as she called him a traitor. "I didn't mean to keep it from you, it just happened."

"Fine, okay, what about this healing potion?" She mumbled, still a bit annoyed at him keeping things from her, but Aubrey was just happy he wasn't being assaulted by her notebook anymore.

"There was this annoying guy who tested it, and the potion didn't work at first, but when I said something about wanting the potion to work on anybody but him...It happened." He explained shrugging in loss, and she was looking at him thoughtfully before shaking her head.

"I don't have an answer here." She told him as if he didn't already expect it. He and his family have spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with him, but at some point, everyone just gave up and accepted that he was just unable to. Deficient. "You think this annoying guy had something to do with it?"

"No." The answer came flatly, a bit too quickly, and Val was amused at how annoyed the usually composed Aubrey seemed. "He just happened to be there. The success of the spell had nothing to do with him."

Val nodded her head deciding to write down how he told her it happened to think about later. This was certainly an interesting thing to explore, but she wondered a few things. "Let's test it."

Sighing, Aubrey didn't seem eager. "We already tested it with the light."

"No, let's try something else. How about conjuring something?" She suggested making him even less eager than before.

"I failed to conjure light, Val. The simplest of spells." He reminded her.

"And yet you somehow gave a potion healing properties, but also excluded someone from being affected by said properties." She pointed out effectively shutting him up and any of his protests. "Maybe complexity is what you need."

It seemed somewhat reasonable, and he found himself slightly more willing to try. "Maybe you're right."

"Alright, then. Conjure something."

But Aubrey didn't know how.

He knew some of the basics like how he needed to know what he wanted to conjure and where it was, and as long as the thing didn't have a protective charm or rune on it, then it was conjurable. For some reason, Aubrey thought of the blue flowers in his mother's greenhouse, and he opened his palm hoping it would materialize there, but there was nothing but air.

Then he thought about the cup he left on his desk in his room that he knew for certain was there, and his try was met again with failure. He thought of more things, and they all ended up in failure as Val's dejection grew with every unsuccessful try.

"Think about something your mother wants, maybe? Wasn't her birthday close?" She suggested unenthusiastically making it clear that she had lost most of her faith about it working, and Aubrey let out an annoyed breath.

"Her birthday was yesterday, and I already thought about it." He told her glaring down at his hand already knowing what his mother wanted. "Nothing appeared."

Val sat silently there for a moment before she joked. "What about what that annoying guy wants?"

"Like I care what he wan-"

Before Aubrey could continue his sentence, a book fell next to him on the floor.

A book which wasn't there before.

Silence filled the room as they both stared at it before it was broken by Val's laughter. Her words were only said as a joke, but somehow, they worked. Somehow the thought of Kellen made Aubrey successfully cast his second spell. The first thing he felt was intense rage before the urge to murder appeared, and his head hurt from how irritated he was by the mere fact that Kellen was the common factor in all of his – two – successful spells.

But it wasn't Kellen.

There was something he was missing, another common factor he wasn't aware of, he was sure of it.