Maddie returned from the Temple visibly shaken.

  “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea,” Cleo whispered to Gaius. He shrugged.

  Maddie wouldn’t say much about her experience. She was still trying to process everything Tereus had said. Not to mention everything that Brigantia -- her mother -- had told her. It was unbelievable. She told her friends that she’d tell them about it, but she wasn’t really sure if that was true. She had felt a growing rift between her and her friends. They seemed to be closer than ever, spending time without her. She couldn’t fathom that it was only because they were trying to find ways of helping her. Cleo was still nice to her,pulling her close and just letting her stay quiet. But maddie didn’t really recognize it for what it was: true friendship. To her it was pity, pure and simple. Her friends, the other students, even Corentin pitied her.

  After another frustrating week, she decided to pay another visit to the Temple. Cleo and gaius were right: she did miss her father terribly. He had always been there for her. But now she had another parent, one who seemed aloof but not entirely uncaring.

  Walking into the vast Temple, Maddie shuddered. Her footsteps echoed on the marble floor, something she hadn’t noticed on her previos casual trip around the room. Rather than going straight to the statue of her mother, she decided to check on another parent: Tereus’s father.

  She approached the statue of Mars hesitantly. In contrast to what she had heard about Ares -- Mars’s Greek counterpart -- the statue didn’t look frightening at all. It was of a tall man, about her father’s age. He had a short, curly beard and a stern, yet kind face. He was dressed as a Roman soldier, with a plumed helmet that covered his ears and the back of his head. Otherwise he was dressed very much as Terreus had been. The man obviously took cues from his father, or at least his father’s representation. His cloak was fastened on one shoulder with a simple clasp. He wore a metal cuirass and metal armor. The symbol of the gorgon was on his chest. He held a spear with branches of laurel wrapped around it.

  Maddie waited by the statue, waiting for some sign that it recognized her, that it was alive somehow. After a few minutes of no response, it occurred to her that Terreus could appear at any moment. She hurried off to the altar of the goddess of her people.

  Brigantia’s statue gazed down at her as it had the other day. She knelt in front of the altar, looking up at this figure that represented her mother, the mother she had never known. After a minute she looked down. It was as if the gates of Ys had opened. Tears began to flow down Maddie’s face. More tears than she thought she could hold. More tears than she had ever cried in her life. After a long time her tears had turned into loud, choking sobs and she had sunk down onto the floor. All her loneliness, her homesickness, her fears, came pouring out of her at once. It was exactly what Corentin had said when he talked about water. It was inexorable. It was strong, it wore her down. The tears just would not stop. Finally, she was curled up in front of the statue sobbing.

  My daughter. She finally heard the words in her head. She looked up through her tears at the statue. It almost looked like it was crying, too. She felt an arm around her shoulders, an invisible embrace.

  Do not cry, child. You have poured out your tears to me and I have felt your pain. I know what you fear, what you mourn. The voice seemed closer somehow, as if it was coming from a place directly in front of her instead of from the statue.

  Your friends are right: you have something special inside you. Your magic is strong and so it hides from you. However, you can access it if you only believe in yourself.

  Maddie wiped away her tears. “I can?”

  “Yes.” maddie was sure she heard those words aloud. The invisible figure seemed to shift in front of her. She could hear its clothes rustle against the floor. She felt a hand on her forehead.

  “Go back to your school. Rest. Sleep. Perhaps it will become clearer.”

  Maddie felt a hand touch her heart. It felt warm, and she could feel warmth spreading through her chest, reaching deep inside her where Corentin said her soul was.

  She tried to touch the hand, but there was nothing there. She looked up at the statue but the tears were gone.

  Maddie went back to the dorms and slept. Cleo checked in on her, noticed her tear-stained face and her heart broke. But she noticed that Maddie’s face had a faint smile on it. She slept through dinner, through the evening, and all night. When Cleo went to check on her the next morning, she found Maddie already bathed and dressed. Her long brown hair was brushed and in its usual loose braid. But more importantly, her friend was cheerful. She gave Cleo a big hug when she opened the door.

  “Are you feeling okay>” Cleo asked. The abrupt change in her friend’s mood was disconcerting to say the least.

  “I’m wonderful! I haven’t felt this good since I arrived at the school.I think it’s because my--” She looked around to see if anyone else was around. “I...I’ll tell you later, actually. Let’s meet with gaius after class, in our usual spot and I’ll tell you. It’s a little hard to believe, actually.”

  “Okay, we’ll talk this afternoon, then.” Cleo was overjoyed. Her friend had returned to her.

  The trio was in their usual spot in the greenhouse. It was good to have all three of them together again. As Maddie had become more and more depressed, she had taken to sleeping in the afternoon. It was why Ceo and gaius had so many discussions without her.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Maddie sat her friends down and paced in front of them.

  “Okay, this is going to be hard to believe. You know that I never knew my mother, right? Well...This is really hard. I met someone who said that my mother is Brigantia.”

  “The goddess?” gaius said, “and you believed this person?”

  “I believed him, yes. I heard the statue in the temple speak to me.” Cleo and gaiuis looked at each other. ‘I know! You’re going to say it’s mind magic! But I went bck to the Temple yesterday. And the statue spoke again. No, my mother spoke to me. I could feel her touch. I could feel her.”

  Tears started rolling down her face again. She sat down on the bench, hard. Cleo put her arm around her friend and drew her close. She could feel the tears hit her shoulder through her tunic.

  “It’s okay. We believe you.”

  But her words started to feel hollow to Maddie. Her friends didn’t believe her. They called her special but they didn’t mean it. It was only pity after all. She forced herself to stop crying and pulled away.

  “Thank you. I appreciate your support. And I think I’m going to have a breakthrough soon with my magic.”

  In class the next day, maddie sat on the grass, alone again in her spot. Sometimes it seemed like everyone else was so far away from her. Even Corentin had started avoiding her section. But today she didn’t care. She might be alone, but she only needed herself.

  As Corentin led them through their beginning-of-class introspection, Maddie turned inward. She had no problem accessing her magical core. She pushed hard, harder than she’d ever pushed before, trying to grasp that elusive ball of magic within her.

  And it didn’t work. If anything, it slipped out of her grasp more quickly, and then wouldn’t let her touch it.

  So she stopped. After a few deep breaths she was ready to try again.

  But she didn't.

  I should just give up, she thought, I'm not special, I'm not powerful. I'm...broken.

  Corentin walked over to her. “Are you okay, Madeleine?”

  She looked up at him and forced a smile. “I'm fine. Just having a little trouble with my magic.”

  He crouched down next to her and looked into her eyes. She noticed that his eyes were bright green, but the sparkle that was normally there was gone. He looked...almost sad. He patted her shoulder.

  “Stay after class. Perhaps we need to talk.”

  Maddie’s stomach sank. He was going to tell her to leave the school. He was going to say her magic was no good.

  She wanted to just get up and run away. Away from class, away from the Academy, away from her so-called friends, away from Ys.

  But she'd probably get stopped by the gates.

  Occupied by such thoughts, she didn't even try to make any more progress before class was over. When the rest of the students got up, Maddie stayed seated. Cleo and Gaius gave her what were meant to be reassuring looks, but she didn't even look up at them. She was too immersed in her own dark thoughts.

  Corwin sat on the grass in front of her, in the same meditation pose that he assigned to his students. Maddie didn't meet his eyes.

  “We need to have a good talk, because the methods we've been using to access your magic haven't been working.”

  “It's because I'm not good enough, right?” Maddie muttered. Corentin looked at her with compassion, but she still stared stubbornly at the ground.

  “No, it is not because you are not good enough. I believe it is because you have a very special power inside of you.”

  “Everyone says that, but I know it's not true.”

  Corentin sighed. “I know that you are very frustrated, but I assure you that it is true. It serves no purpose for us all to be lying to you. If you were truly as powerless as you seem to think, you would never have been granted admission to this school. We take very good care when selecting students, as we very much dislike having to expel them.”

  Maddie felt like the boom was about to drop. Corentin said that they didn't like to expel students, not that they never did.

  “Madeleine!” Corentin said loudly. She looked up at him in surprise. “You are not going to be expelled. You are not inferior to the other students. You merely have a very spec...a very different type of magic. My techniques do not work for every student. Many students in the past have needed to explore other options.” His voice softened. “I myself needed different methods when exploring my own magic. The use of meditation, of inward focus, is an old one. Even before the East was opened to us, mages used some variation of these methods. I know you and your friends experimented on your own at one point. Many students do. So you can see how ubiquitous this methodology is.

  “But there are certain magics that require different methods. I am quite surprised that Cleopatra was able to access her Pure Magic so easily. Usually it requires outside help. Mind magic, null magic, and a few other non-elemental magics are the same. My mind magic took a lot of work and a lot of outside intervention to foster. Having mental magic is one of the reasons that I chose to teach. It makes it possible for me to help students like you.”

  Maddie looked at him in astonishment. “You...you mean that?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Corentin proceeded to lead Maddie through a very different kind of meditation. This time, instead of just looking inward, he helped her to imagine a forest in her mind. Then he guided her into seeing the magic in everything around her. After guiding her through a few more mental exercises, he had her look inward, to her soul. But she wasn't there to look for magic, just to see herself as she was. She felt a rush of energy, her dark thoughts receded. She hadn't found her magic, but she had found something.

  Maddie met with her teacher after class every day to practice this new type of meditation. He even led the rest of the class through it a few times. The meditation did not stay the same every time; Corentin added new places to explore and new facets of herself to see.

  It was almost two weeks later that they finally began bringing magic into it. This time Maddie was able to get a glimpse of her magic. It was just the slightest, fleeting glimpse, but a glimpse nonetheless.

  Her magic was foggy. I appeared as a greyness with fuzzy edges and an almost swirliness to it. Maddie's first though was of fog, but there wasn't fog magic. Was there?

  Corentin seemed a little surprised by what he saw. Using his mental magic he could see what she saw as long as she allowed him to. He had a better idea than she did about the type of magic, but it wasn't something he had seen very often. In fact, even he couldn't pinpoint the exact type of magic, though he had some ideas.

  “We'll stop there for now. I will need a few days to look into some possibilities, so for now we will stop meeting after class.”

  He seemed pensive, but Maddie tried to stop herself from reading too much into it. She decided to take his words at face value. He left and she headed toward the greenhouse to meet her friends. On her way there she was stopped when Tereus stepped onto the path.