I believe you are confused. Sorcery has no 'bare bones'—it is formless. But the essence of spell craft is art. You will know you are doing it right when you begin butting heads.

—ATTICUS WONDERHOFF, PROF (W.H.), AS CITED BY THE EDITOR, MORBID MAGAZINE (APPRENTICE EDITION).

As Elizabeth Baffleme walked into the Sorcerers' Assembly, she placed youthful faces on older ones everywhere she looked. The excited whispers and hushes she heard were not unlike the ones from long ago made through missing front teeth and snotty noses.

Gone were the ugly, loose-fitting robes and mismatched hats all apprentices grew fond of after the first test had convinced them otherwise; replaced with couture dresses and suits little Nélisse had crafted, a fish in water that one.

Elizabeth smiled through tears that teased her eyes. Her young apprentices had grown into fine adults!

Oh, but that gripping silence where mystia should've trembled in glee at the gathering of sorcerers. Who thought that up? It couldn't be little Kirsten, bless her. Was it O'Hara and Burnswitch butting heads again? Some things never changed. Or perhaps the Dreamspawn boy? No, he was probably nodding off in a corner--

Oh.

There he is! Elizabeth thought, a bright smile on her face as she walked the red carpet leading to the podium where Madders Burnswitch stood, calm, collected. But her gaze was on one of three Advocates in matching, gray, formal robes—a man with dreadlocks wearing a sleeping mask that exposed his runed eyelids. Elizabeth saw his eyes (shut) dart towards her as the man nodded in acknowledgment, then turned his gaze to Madders. Well, if it isn't Rem, then surely, it must be… the Rule-breaker, of course!

But Elizabeth couldn't see… the Rule-breaker, no matter where she looked. Where was the little miscreant?

Caught in a hat of mischief somewhere, no doubt, she thought.

Commissioner Lamium's gavel, striking his sounding block, ended Elizabeth's reverie. The man's voice resounded through a thick accent, saying,

"You will do well to remember that this is not an occasion for speeches or sentiment, Lord Burnswitch. I do not care for your academic inadequacies. Neither does anyone of merit in this Assembly... correction—perhaps your mother and former headmistress do. Please, spare them the shame."

Lamium, a gaunt purple-skinned man of sharp features and glass-like translucent hair, dressed in fine dark robes, set his eyes first on Melinda Crowspawn, one of three members of the Jury of Advocates sitting at the Hallowed Table, then on Baffleme, taking her leisurely stroll toward the podium as he spoke.

Madders Burnswitch said, "I won't speak for headmistress Baffleme. But I expected decorum from you, honorable Commissioner. Perhaps you weren't aware that Melinda Crowspawn, bound by the arcane spell craft of this House, doesn't sit here as my mother? I--"

"Lord Burnswitch!" said Rem Dreamspawn. "Are you suggesting the Commissioner of the Bureau of Sorcery is inept at his duty?"

"Certainly not, Advocate. All I'm saying is--"

'Need I remind you of your… precarious position in this House?' Rem asked that next. That's how it went. Madders thought—it was like déjà vu. Like remembering something that happened in a dream while living it, but not as it was.

Madders clenched his jaw, "--had the incumbent done even a little reading into his predecessor's tenure, he would know that Commissioner Ravenspawn witnessed Advocate Crowspawn sentence her own son, my older brother Madden, to a lifetime of incarceration with hard labor on Salem Island for his crimes when he was but a boy of sixteen!"

I expected deviations in Rem's curse—but this heat! Madders thought, his heart leaping. Is it a Salemite's nightmare?

"A prison territory your family lords over!" said a stunning gray-skinned woman with short translucent hair. "Are we not to believe that the Mad Culler receives special treatment?"

It burns! Speak. Say something! Madders thought.

"That is correct, Advocate Lavandula. House Burnswitch's spellbreakers give certain prisoners in Salem special treatment. But I assure you, it isn't the kind one wishes on their kin... least of all a mother who still sheds tears for her boy, where the world sees only a monster."

It burns!

Murmurs spread as the sorcerers in the public gallery, and the oval chamber took to their seats.

"My concern is not for monsters, Lord Burnswitch. How… humane is this special treatment? Salemites are citizens of the Mainland—however… unruly. Would you care to elaborate?"

Madders met eyes with the Advocate. Her gray skin had luminous purple pigmentation in certain places, it freckled her face. To her left sat Rem Dreamspawn, on her right, his mother—who had yet to utter a word. Behind the Jury of Advocates, in the lofty Speaker's Chair, Madders saw a vague outline of the staunch Commissioner Lamium.

A heat haze blurred his vision. Fire—there was scalding flame on his back. Madders could smell his charred flesh as his bones snapped like twigs in the heat—a woman's wailing in his ears. The man drew a sharp breath; his forehead was slick with sweat.

Speak! So what if it burns?! He thought, his eyes wide. Madders clenched his jaw before his lips parted, saying,

"I would not, Advocate Lavandula. House Burnswitch's activities on the independent prison territory of Salem Island aren't under scrutiny today. I merely facilitated this meeting with Headmistress Baffleme as any concerned representative in my position would have. My… my vote will pass solely on what transpires from this hearing. I implore you all not to allow sentiment to cloud your judgment, either. That's… all I had to say to this Assembly, Commissioner."

The tall cloaked man, olive-skinned with his slick raven black hair and sharp hazel eyes, walked off the podium toward one seat in the oval chamber. Emblazoned on the back of Madders Burnswitch's black-as-night cloak was a symbol of a wailing woman burning at a stake on a mountain of skulls.

And as Madders took to his seat, he breathed shallow breaths. Madders touched the back of his neck, slick with sweat. His fingers traced runes that run down his spine as he said,

"Proudly, we carry it with shame," in Salemite.

***

"So you take our children away for six years, and what do you teach them, exactly?" Asked Melinda Crowspawn, a sharp middle-aged woman with blond hair turning white, neatly in a bun.

"Applied sorcery in spell craft, Advocate," Baffleme replied, standing at the podium.

"Why can't parents and guardians visit in that period?"

"Should you plant an oak seed today, would you dig it up every other month simply to observe its growth, Advocate Crowspawn?"

Melinda smiled, pointing to a projected image floating in the air as she said,

"Hmm. Is that all it is, Headmistress Baffleme? That right there, is that not what you really teach these minors?"

The censored projection told a thousand gruesome tales with the same morbid ending. Uniformed men and women, strange beasts, and bipedal plant-like beings—massacred in a desert of colossal sand dunes.

"No, that is barbaric," Baffleme said, not looking at the projection. "And even then, it is a choice made by individuals. It is not institutionalized. Littlegiant's has never imposed a dogma on its apprentices in our 978 year history—that is something we leave for you, the Bureaucracies. Spell craft, Advocate, is art; it is--"

"Headmistress Baffleme! Are you suggesting to this Assembly that the murder of 150 spellbreakers who bravely dedicated their lives to the Mainland is art? Shall we find meaning in this canvas painted red with the blood and viscera of our sons and daughters?"

"Butchered like animals, they were!" Advocate Lavandula said, slamming her hand against the table.

"I will repeat myself for clarity's sake—that is barbaric." Baffleme pointed a finger at the projection, still not looking at it. "That rigidity and creativity do not mellow, is the take away here, Advocates. Littlegiant's apprentices in spell craft follow not orders like spellbreakers do. My colleagues and I didn't train a militia of child soldiers. We taught our apprentices to solve problems bigger wands cannot."

"These are problems created at your school!" Melinda Crowspawn said as the enchanted sheets of paper at her table multiplied. Hundreds flew off, spreading across the Assembly landing in the hands of representatives and guests alike. Three sheets floated right in front of Baffleme's face. "We have intercepted messages and vetted witness testimonials that suggest certain key members of the Environmentalists are, in fact, alumni of Littlegiant's! Do you deny this, headmistress Baffleme?"

Gasps and murmurs resounded as the sorcerers processed the information. A smile crossed Baffleme's lips as she waved the enchanted paper away. Looking right at Melinda, she said,

"Create! There's an inspiring word. Let me share with you a lesson I taught my apprentices to keep at the top of their heads at all times, Advocate Crowspawn—no one ever handed out a patent or a Wizarding Prize for creating a problem. What matters is solving problems. That is all any alumni of Littlegiant's are concerned with. That much I am certain of. It is in showing their work that the wannabes and the phonies separate themselves from the brilliance of true creatives."

"You contradict yourself, headmistress, Baffleme," said Melinda Crowspawn. "It sounds like your school shared a rather irresponsible dogma, after all: 'it matters not what spell craft you employ; solve a problem and no one will call you a wannabe or a phony—you'll be a brilliant creative,' is it? Tell me, what problem are the Environmentalists solving in the Mohabi Desert whose solution demands loss of life when asked to 'show their work' to curious observers and skeptics alike?"

"No institution is perfect, Advocate Crowspawn. Littlegiant's is not an exception. But for every rotten fruit on a branch, there are a dozen good ones. That is why we implemented our Ethical Spell Crafting courses. A look at our curriculum will show you--"

"Ah, the infamous Ethical Hexing course Lord Burnswitch spoke so fondly of—neglecting to mention how obsession led Atticus Wonderhoff to his grave! Are you certain it was ethics you were teaching your apprentices, headmistress?"

"I have practiced sorcery far longer than your few centuries, Melinda—do not lecture me on ethics!" Baffleme said. The golden glow in her eyes receded as she took a breath. "Advocate Crowspawn… I counted 327 sorcerers in this assembly with purple—seed-stained lips as I walked in. How many Mystian Fauna and Flora died, so a motley sum of incompetent sorcerers could cast spells for longer at the cost of irreversible damage to Mystian Ecosystems critical to the biosphere? What my apprentices and colleagues did at Littlegiant's was make sorcerers around the globe aware of problems we were ignorant of for so long. We didn't create these problems, we exposed them."

Silence.

"Do you support the Environmentalists, Headmistress Baffleme?" Melinda Crowspawn asked, finally.

"I support the preservation of the world and all that live in it, Advocate. A fundamental principle of spell craft is sustainability. There is no point to invention if no one is there to appreciate it."

"Answer my question, Headmistress! Do you support the Environmentalists? It's a definitive yes or no I want," asked Melinda Crowspawn, leaning in.

"I do not support acts of barbarism or terror. An influential thinker of the past was right when he said humanity would fight future wars with sticks and stones—wands and golem-automata, Advocate Crowspawn. After all, what do you have when unschooled sorcerers, encouraged by mercenaries and poachers posing as guilds and noble houses, play around with mystian forces? A threat to civilization far greater than atomics were—our wars will be the last."

"It's a simple yes or no, Headmistress Baffleme! Leave the podium if you will not answer the Advocate's inquiries!" Commissioner Lamium said.

Baffleme continued, "Perhaps that is a good thing, gone with us all, but I do not believe it is the best thing—because it is irresponsible. Who--"

Elizabeth's mic got cut as the Commissioner's gavel met his sounding block. But her words, well not quite, resonated through the mystia long enough for a dark-haired boy in the public gallery named Sonata Ludwig to mutter, "--cleans up our mess?" and as he did, Sonata could've sworn he saw Elizabeth Baffleme, smile and wink at him.

Commissioner Lamium said, "Enough! All representatives in favor of reopening Littlegiant's School of Applied Sorcery in Spell Craft… on probation, say, aye."

No more was there a gripping silence in the oval chamber as, one after the other, the representatives let their mystia flux.

***

To be continued.