An incessant ringing pierces through the fog of sleep surrounding me, forcing me to grudgingly open my eyes. I reach out, feeling blindly around me until my hand touches the drawer beside my bed. I pick up my phone and dismiss the alarm before taking a good look at the time. It's five a.m. Time for me to get up and begin preparing for school. I don't get up though, choosing instead to remain on the bed, trying to recall the sweet feeling of sleep.

After a few seconds, during which I become fully awake, I begin to get the feeling that there is something I am supposed to remember. Something exciting and life-changing, but I can't place my finger on what exactly it is.

Some futile efforts later, I decide to change tactics and instead try to retrace my actions yesterday and see if I can remember anything important. A few seconds later, I sit up straight on the bed, my heart pounding with excitement as I try to wrap my head around a seemingly impossible fact. I have magic.

I remember clearly all that happened to me yesterday now. The meeting with Drew in the lands of time, the bookshop hiding the entrance to the Metorium, the Metorium and the Masters, and finally, the fact that I have magic. The last thing I can remember is seeing the Eldest and the Masters and the magic surrounding them.

I get up from the bed and turn on the lights. Everything seems surreal, almost like a dream, but I know it is not a dream. It is real. I might have doubted the fact that I had magic if not for the fact that I could feel the changes in me. I raise my hands and stare at them as I imagine all the things I could do with them now.

The urge to use the magic comes from nowhere, overpowering my reason. I needed to do something with it now!

I look around my room and my gaze settles on a pen, sitting on a desk beside my laptop. Immediately, I decide to use telekinesis. The first-ever thing I am going to do with magic will be telekinesis.

As I decide that, I immediately realize something. I have no idea how to use magic, still, I do not let that daunt me and just decide to wing it. I close my eyes, feeling the storm of power inside me. I try to move it around and with some effort, it does. I smile at my achievement.

Taking hold of the power, I open my eyes and raise my hand to the pen. Willing it to come to me, I unleash a small amount of the power inside me.

The socket near the desk burst out with sparks, flashing a few times before bursting into flames. Alarmed, I glance around the room, before setting my eyes on my pair of slides. I grab one of them, before rushing over to the burning socket and hitting it as hard as I can. A few hits later, the fire is out.

As I drop my slides, I come to a decision: not to use magic again until I had full control over it. As for the burnt socket, I had no idea how I was going to explain it to my mom. I decide not to mention it for now. Hopefully, she won't notice the smell of burning rubber coming from here. With all this done, I begin to prepare for school.

Once I am done preparing, I head to the kitchen to have breakfast. I meet my mom there, by the kettle, where she is boiling water to make tea. As usual, she looks like she hadn't slept well the night before.

"Good morning, mom, " I greet as I head to the fridge and pull out a loaf of bread.

"Morning Ian. "

I feel her stare at me as I bring out the toaster and put my bread in. I turn around to face her after I turn the toaster on. "Is anything wrong?" I ask.

She shrugs. "You didn't come for dinner last night. Or take your medication. I tried to wake you but that didn't work. Did anything happen to you yesterday that I don't know about?"

I shake my head as my thoughts turn to the Laen. "Nah. I was just really tired. Mondays are the worst."

Her water finishes boiling and she turns her focus on it. As she makes her tea she asks. "Do you want some tea?"

"No!"

"It's good for your health."

"My answer is still no."

"I'll give you twenty dollars if you drink it this morning."

That gives me pause, but after some consideration, I still shake my head. The offer was tempting, but I know my mom. She wouldn't give me the money. She'd probably just laugh at me for allowing myself to get fooled. Besides, I really don't like the taste of tea.

I am just done with breakfast when Emily finally comes to take hers. Her expression is glum as she brings out a box of cereal.

"Good morning sis," I say, making my voice as chirpy as possible.

"There's nothing good about the morning."

"Is anything wrong?" I ask her.

She shakes her head. "Nothing's wrong."

"Right. And I'm batman. Seriously, what's wrong."

She sighs."I'll tell you later."

I raise my eyebrows but do not object. If she wants to talk, she'll talk. "Okay then," I say as I walk out of the kitchen. "Bye."

* * * * * *

Not long after I get to school, I spot Drew walking toward me.

He waves at me and I wave back.

"Good morning, Ian," He says once he is close to me.

"Good morning."

"I wanted to tell you something yesterday, but you were unconscious so…. Anyway, I just wanted to warn you not to use your magic."

"Why?" I ask as my thoughts immediately go to the incident in my bedroom.

"Look, if you try to use magic without training, bad things will happen. You need to be able to control your power, or at least understand what you are doing before trying to use magic."

"Well, it's a bit too late to be telling me that."

He frowns for a moment, then a look of understanding dawns upon him, followed by a conspiratorial grin. "You tried to use it, didn't you? Okay, what happened?"

"I was trying to use telekinesis, but instead I ended up almost setting my house on fire." I then proceed to tell him everything that had happened this morning.

He bursts out laughing once I am done. "Well," he says, "my first experience with magic was worse than yours. If not for Ruan, I would have blown up my former school."

I look at him incredulously. "Really?"

He nods. "It was winter then, I had just gotten to my school and was feeling a bit cold, so I thought to myself, 'Why don't I make a small fire, something that can warm me up a little bit'. So I went to the bathroom and just released my power and tried to form fire with it. The next thing I know, boom! I didn't know how volatile magic was then. If not for Ruan protecting me and containing my power, well, I don't know what would have happened."

"This probably means I won't be able to use magic for some time right? I mean it is volatile and all…"

"You'll be able to use it quicker than you think. Yes, magic is volatile, but that doesn't mean it's some super hard thing to control. I don't mean it's easy… I don't mean it's hard either…well, magic is neither easy nor hard to learn, you just have to be ready to put in the effort."

"Either way, I won't be able to learn it until summer begins, right? That's when you have classes."

"Actually, you will start your classes today."

"Really?" I ask disbelievingly.

He nods. "The Eldest is scared of you accidentally killing yourself by trying to use magic, so he told me to tell you your classes start today."