An hour later I wiped a fine sheen of sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. I was breathless and felt a little bit light-headed, but I had just managed to generate and control enough of a breeze to make the pinwheel lift off the workbench and hover in mid-air for almost thirty seconds.

“Very well done!” Ken said, obviously pleased with the progress I had made. “I must say, for only your second day, your fine control is already improving dramatically. We’ll make a grade-A spellslinger out of you in no time.”

I groaned a little and sat down on the stool beside the table.

Ken laughed. “I know, the first practical lessons are exhausting, aren’t they.”

“Incredibly,” I said, with great feeling.

I jumped a little as someone touched my arm gently, then pressed a plastic sports bottle of water into my hand before setting a plate - containing a sandwich that my nose told me was applewood smoked turkey with provolone on sourdough - onto the table in front of me. I turned in surprise to find a teenager staring back at me with an impish smile on her face and an equally mischievous twinkle in her brilliant purple eyes.

It took me a moment to look away from those eyes to take in pixie cut of her hair - which matched the color of her eyes perfectly - and the delicate, pretty features of her face. The diaphanous silk sundress likewise matched the color of her hair and eyes, and her translucent wings - folded tightly to her back, no doubt useless at this size - glistened with similar shades of purple. Her feet were still bare.

“Sparkle?” I asked incredulously.

“Un huh!” She bounced on her toes and grinned up at me, now only a couple of inches shorter than I was. “It’s a lot easier to carry human stuff when I’m not my normal size, and Mistress Chessie used to need a drink and a snack after her lessons, so…” She did a pirouette on her toes, her wings flaring out a little for balance, spreading her arms at the end of it. “Ta da!”

I sipped some water…she was right, I was parched and felt like I’d just finished a long run. “That is really, really cool, Sparkle! How long can you…” I gestured to indicate her size.

“A couple of hours,” Ken said, drifting over. “Longer, if she practiced it more often.”

“I haven’t had any reason to, have I,” she said sulkily.

“Well,” I said firmly, “I think it’s amazing. Thank you, Sparkle.”

She beamed, actually starting to glow a little.

The sandwich - which was delicious - took up my attention for the next few minutes. As I swallowed the last bite and sipped more water, I said to Ken, “So…this exhaustion I’m feeling…”

He smiled reassuringly. “Is perfectly normal. You’re using energy, and it has to be replenished from somewhere. In fact, spellcasting is an excellent form of exercise…it burns a lot of calories.”

I snorted a little laugh. “I think I’ll continue my normal exercise too.”

“An excellent idea,” Ken agreed. “A healthy body makes a healthy mind, and physical stamina does translate into magical stamina, at least to some extent. But don’t be surprised if you’re eating more than usual for a while.”

I nodded. That made good sense to me. “Speaking of which…thank you, Sparkle, for the sandwich. I had no idea how hungry this had made me.”

Sparkle, who had pulled over another stool and now sat facing me, her feet swinging a little, beamed at me. “I missed doing stuff like that for Mistress Chessie. I liked running errands for her.”

I smiled. “Well, now that I know you can do it, I’ll send you to get things for me, if that’s really what you want.”

Her whole face lit up with happiness and she literally started to shed a gentle purple glow again. “Really?”

Ken laughed softly.

“Really,” I said gently. “For starters, why don’t you take this plate back to the kitchen for me, and bring me a fresh bottle of water. I suspect Ken’s not done with me yet, and I’ll need another drink before this is over.”

Sparkle squealed happily and was out the door so quickly that the plate and bottle - which had still been in my hands - seemed to vanish, and her stool was still rocking a little when the door closed behind her.

I blinked in surprise, then laughed softly. “Never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine that I’d ever have friends like you two.”

Chuckling softly, Ken drifted to the end of the table and reattached the pinwheel to the vice. “Not even when you were a little girl?”

I felt my cheeks warm a bit. “Well…maybe. When I was little.”

He smiled at me. “We are your servants, Mistress. You are who we exist for.”

“I won’t abuse the privilege,” I said softly, considering his words. Servants. “Ken…can’t you be my friends, not just servants?”

His glowing eyes met mine for a moment and his smile flashed brightly. “Of course we can, Mistress. There’s nothing in the rule book that says your servants can’t also be your friends.” He spread his hands. “Remember, Sparkle and I are not mortals. We are what you define us to be.” He grinned. “With the exception that I will always be your teacher.”

I made a thoughtful sound. “Well, maybe someday I’ll know more than you.”

His smile turned impish. “Perhaps. Time will tell. For now, apprentice, on your feet. We’re going to cast one more spell today.”

“We?” I asked as I stood up, taking stock of myself. I felt quite a lot better than I had before eating the snack Sparkle had brought. Tired, but not as depleted as I had been. I made a mental note to pick up a case of protein bars and keep one in my pocket at all times.

“Semantics,” he replied with an airy wave of one hand. “It’s time for you to learn your first self-defense spell.” He gestured to the pinwheel. “You are going to hit that with a spark of electricity.”

I shivered a little, then steeled myself, remembering what Malcolm O’Day had said about the town needing me. “The Taser-like spell you mentioned before?”

“Precisely. Just enough energy to knock a man down and stun him, but not enough to do any lasting harm.” He pursed his lips. “It’s a good place to start, I think.”

I nodded, trying to imagine what such a thing would look like.

“Before you start,” Ken said, “remember to construct the package for it…you need a verbal focus, at least for now."

I considered what I knew of Latin grammar and vocabulary. I’d studied the language for a couple of semesters at university, not enough to speak or read it fluently, but my steel trap of a mind ruthlessly kept every last scrap of information I put in it. Now, Latin would come in handy. Sort of. “How about ‘fulparum’?” I asked. “Fulmen and parum conjugated in ways that would probably make my Latin professor smash his head on his desk.”

“Very little lightning?” Ken asked, amused. “Yes, that will work. The association is nicely solid.”

“Then I envision the effect,” I murmured, imagining myself thrusting two fingers towards the pinwheel, a slender thread of electricity leaping from my fingertips to it.

Ken nodded. “That’s right. Then you gather the energy. This spell will take more than your little breeze spell, but not too much more. Your mother used to joke that she imagined scuffing her feet on a thick carpet for an hour when she cast similar spells.”

I laughed at the mental image, but it was a surprisingly effective one. I mean…what child hasn’t experimented with static electricity by shuffling around on a carpet, then zapping someone by touching their bare skin with a fingertip. So I kept that image in mind as I began to gather the energy, imagining it as static electricity that made my hand tingle gently, gathering in my fingertips.

I exhaled slowly, took a deep breath, and stared at the pinwheel.

“When you’re ready,” Ken said quietly, “you know what to do.”

I nodded, clenched my right hand into a fist, extended the first two fingers of that hand, and then thrust them towards the pinwheel, shouting, “Fulparum!”

The result was, in retrospect, perfectly predictable. I had gathered a bit too much energy, and had been - in my nervousness - more than a little too vigorous with the verbal focus. The resulting brilliant blue-white spark of electricity that leaped from my fingertips was more like a small bolt of lightning than a taser shot…it was as thick around as a pencil, and the air cracked like a whip in its wake. It forked several times as it went, not quite controlled, scorching a few short grooves into the wooden surface of the table and grounding on both stools and other nearby metal implements.

The pinwheel, poor thing, was blown to tiny burning bits that drifted pathetically to the tabletop and floor before sputtering out, leaving tiny little piles of ash. The air was full of the smell of ozone and burnt wood and plastic.

Ken winced. “That…was a bit much.”

“Oops,” I said weakly.

“Very impressive, though,” he added encouragingly. “As I suspected, you have a natural talent for lightning.”

I looked at the lightly smoking remains of the pinwheel, and the scorched lines and divots gouged into the surface of the table.

“Great,” I said quietly.

“Mistress,” Sparkle said quietly from behind me, “I know you don’t like this…your mother didn’t either…but please believe us when we tell you it’s very important that you know how to defend yourself.” She took my right hand gently in her left as she came to stand beside me. She reached behind me at the same time, setting a fresh bottle of water on the table.

I squeezed her hand gently “It’s just so hard to envision myself doing violence to anyone or anything. I feel kind of guilty for destroying that poor pinwheel!”

Ken smiled a little. “If you don’t start it, it’s just self-defense.”

“Even if you do start it,” Sparkle said in a surprisingly firm tone, “it can still be self-defense. We fairies know better than most the value of striking first and as hard as possible. We’re very vulnerable, even in large groups.”

I picked up the bottle with my free hand and drank from it slowly to give myself a moment to consider that. I hadn’t before then, but in retrospect it made sense. If there were supernatural predators out in the world, there would be supernatural prey too…and Sparkle, in her natural size, fit that definition very well. At least, I assumed she did, based on what she had said. For all I knew a group of fairies working together could do a lot of damage. But I doubted it.

“Well,” I said finally, “I suppose if it’s something that’s important for me to learn - and Malcolm O’Day in town implied that it was too - it’s reassuring to know that I’ll be able to do it and do it well, with some practice.”

“That’s the spirit!” Ken said cheerfully.

Sparkle coughed quietly.

He sighed. “Sorry. I can’t seem to help it sometimes.”

After I’d refreshed myself and had, in Ken’s opinion, stewed in silence long enough, he gestured to the other side of the room. “Come over here with me, and we’ll see if we can find a length of wood that suits you to start your first staff.”

Sparkle clapped excitedly, bounced off her stool, took my hands in hers and tugged me to my feet. Her hands were warm around mine…but then, she was literally a bundle of energy, I supposed. It shouldn’t have surprised me that her body temperature was higher than mine.

Ken led us to a rack containing a dozen lengths of wood, only a couple of inches in diameter each, and all of them about six feet long. “We can cut them down to size if need be,” he said, “but it’s not a bad thing if it’s longer than you are tall. I could even teach you a bit of quarterstaff fighting for self-defense.”

“That actually sounds pretty interesting,” I said, as a length of white wood at the far right end of the rack caught my eyes.

Ken seemed to notice, and smiled faintly before leading me to the left end. “We’ll try them all out to begin. Just pick up each one, feel it, try to sense the energy of it.”

“What am I looking for?” I asked as Sparkle stepped back to give me room.

“You’ll know when you feel it,” Ken replied cryptically.

“Thank you, oh knowledgeable one,” I said dryly. “Do you think you could be a little bit less specific? That was almost helpful.”

Sparkle giggled.

Ken flashed me his quick grin. “It’s actually fairly simple, really. The same way each person has elemental affinities, everybody has affinities for certain materials. Different materials - wood, metal, stone and gems, among other things - resonate differently with different people. It’s one of the reasons why most spellcasters can’t use a focus made by someone else.”

He tipped his head and looked at me thoughtfully. “I suspect you will be an oak. Your family has a long history of working with oak.”

I laughed a little. “Never would’ve guessed, what with that oak and ivy leaf pattern so prevalent in the house and town.”

Ken chuckled softly. “True. At any rate, your father laid in a number of different types of wood for you to choose from. At least one of them, possibly more, should suit you.”

“And if they don’t?” I asked, more out of curiosity than any worry.

“We’ll try metals,” Ken shrugged. “Your grandmother used a staff of steel and copper woven together. It weighed a fair bit, but she could do incredible things with it, especially when she was working with electricity.”

“I suppose it would’ve been like using a lightning rod,” I said. When Ken nodded, I returned my attention to the row of potential staves, glancing down the line at the shaft of white wood again, before returning my attention to the ones directly in front of me.

“Start here at the left,” Ken said, with what I thought was a sad little smile, “and work your way to the right. If you find one that feels different than the others, we’ll set it aside, and I’ll tell you what it is.”

“All right,” I nodded, reached out, and touched the first length of wood. I let my fingers glide along its smooth, unpolished surface, then picked it up and frowned at it. “It…feels like wood.”

Ken laughed. “Then move on to the next one.”

I passed over four total before finally understanding what Ken meant. When I touched the fifth staff - a length of dark, reddish-brown wood - it made my fingers tingle gently and seemed almost to hum against my skin. “This one,” I said. “I feel something.”

“Good,” Ken said, nodding. “Red mahogany. That’s an interesting one.”

I pulled it from the rack and set it on the table behind us. “Why interesting?”

“Mahogany,” Ken said, “is generally associated with spiritual growth and guidance. It’s an excellent wood for emotional and spiritual healing, but can be rather brittle.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Ken smiled. “Don’t read too much into it, though it can reveal some things about you. Next?”

I continued on, stopping again after three more. “This one,” I said, “feels like the mahogany one.”

“Very good,” Ken said. “As I expected…that one is oak. Oak, it is said, teaches us strength of character. It’s also associated with - among other things - the energy of kingship and wise rule…authority, power, protection, wisdom, endurance, and so on.”

“I rather like that,” I said, looking at it thoughtfully before setting it on the table. “It sounds reassuring.”

Ken smiled. “Yes, it does. Keep going.”

The next one made my fingers tingle too, though not as much as the other two. I set it with the others as Ken identified it.

“Cherry,” he said, “would be an interesting wood for you. Cherry is associated with lessons of clearing the heart of pain, and teaches us how to relate to others in a compassionate manner.”

I made a thoughtful sound. “That’s rather profound.”

Ken chuckled softly. “Most of them will seem so. In truth, we’re just looking for a wood that energy flows through easily for you.”

“So how come I never felt this tingle when I touched wood before now?” I asked. “I mean, oak is a very common wood. This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve come into contact with it.”

“The wood needs to be specially prepared before it will work as a staff,” Ken said. “I’ll teach you how to do that later. For now, suffice it to say that your father already took care of that step with these, which is why they react to you. Ones that you prepare yourself will be even more effective.”

“Ah. So…why not prepare them myself now?” I asked.

“An apprentice’s first staff is usually made by their master,” Ken explained, “simply as a matter of convenience. The techniques for preparing the wood are rather complex, and not something a new apprentice is ready to learn.”

I considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Makes sense.”

I set aside the next length of wood as well, which was made of eucalyptus. Ken explained that it was the strongest wood for use in healing magic. “Even if you don’t make a staff of it,” he said, “it would be a good idea to make a wand or bracelet of eucalyptus for enhancing healing spells.”

Finally, I reached the length of smooth white wood that had been tugging at my attention from the start. The instant I touched it, I knew it was the one. It felt so right under my fingers that they closed around it automatically, and when I held it in my hand it felt almost like an extension of my arm.

“This one,” I said with perfect certainty.

Ken huffed a little laugh and smiled sadly. “I should have known.”

When I glanced at Sparkle, she had her hands over her mouth and had tears in her eyes, which she blinked away quickly when she saw me looking.

“Why?” I asked. “What is it?”

“White wax wood,” Ken said softly. “Your mother prepared that one for you when you were born. She had used one like it for years, and was positive that it was going to work just as well for you. Your father had doubts - he was a man who always planned for contingencies - so he prepared the others.”

“They were like that,” Sparkle said softly, coming to stand beside me again. “Mistress Chessie was always so certain of everything, and Master James always had doubts about everything.”

I shifted the staff to my left hand and set its end on the floor. It was a couple of inches taller than I was, smooth and almost perfectly round from top to bottom, with its ends flattened. The length of it had been sanded and polished to a shine. “So, what does white wax wood represent?”

Ken smiled. “Truthfully, I’m not sure. It’s an Eastern wood, from China and Japan, so it doesn’t have any Western associations. But it’s highly prized for its strength, flexibility, and its ability to take shocks without breaking. In that, it is most assuredly a good match for you, Mistress.”