The Sorcery Code (The Sorcery Code #1)(46)
The next thing he did was compose a message to Gala. He wasn’t sure if the Contact spell would work with her, but he still intended to try. His message to her was shorter:
“Gala, this is Blaise. I am thinking of you. Please listen to Esther when she asks you to go to a different area and try to be discreet.
Yours, Blaise.”
Thus happy with both notes, Blaise fed the cards into the Interpreter Stone. Combining spells like this was efficient, since some of the code for both messages would be shared.
Getting up, he was about to leave the room when he felt something unusual—something he hadn’t experienced in two years.
It was the mildly invasive sensation of another sorcerer sending him a Contact spell.
Surprised, Blaise nonetheless relaxed and let the message come to him, curious to learn who could be reaching out to him.
To his shock, it was Gala.
“Blaise, it’s great to hear from you.” Like all Contact spells, her words came in the form of a voice in his head—a voice that was really his inner voice, but that somehow took on a different tone. “I can’t believe you are speaking in my mind. I miss you, and I hope to see you soon. I have so much I want to talk to you about.
Yours, Gala.”
Blaise listened to her message with awe. How had she managed to do this? When he saw her last, her magical abilities had been virtually nonexistent, and now she was able to do a complex bit of sorcery in less time than it would take to write a basic spell. It could only mean one thing: she was starting to do magic directly, as he’d hoped she would be able to do.
Excited, he sat down to compose a response to Gala. It took him several minutes to prepare the spell. He wrote:
“Gala, I’m so excited you’ve mastered this form of communication. I miss you. How is your time in the village so far? Did Esther explain to you about the trip to Neumanngrad?”
There was no response back. Disappointed, Blaise waited several minutes before admitting to himself that none was coming.
Getting up, he decided to occupy himself by putting his house to rights while he figured out what to do next.
He would not let Augusta and the Council wreck his life again, not if he could help it.
Chapter 28: Gala
Gala was almost back at Esther and Maya’s house when she heard a strange voice in her head. It was as though she was speaking to herself in some strange way. As she listened, however, she realized it was a message from Blaise.
After she heard everything, she grinned in excitement. Blaise wanted her to travel and see more of the world. And the best part was that he was thinking of her! Filled with delight, Gala felt an overwhelming urge to talk to him, to reach out to him in the same way he had just contacted her. And suddenly, she felt herself responding, even though she didn’t understand how she was doing it.
“Blaise, it is great to hear from you,” she began, her excitement spilling out into the mental message.
To her disappointment, he didn’t respond right away. But she noticed Esther staring at her intently. “Did he get in touch with you too?” the older woman asked.
“If you mean Blaise, then yes,” Gala said, smiling.
“Good,” Esther said. “Then I hopefully don’t need to convince you that we must go.”
“Oh, you don’t have to convince me,” Gala told her earnestly. “I would love to see more of the world.”
And by the time Esther explained to them where they were going, Blaise came back to Gala with his response.
Smiling, she began to think of the answers to his questions, but whatever it was that helped her do this before was no longer there. She couldn’t seem to tap into the part of her mind that made mental communication so easy and effortless before. After several fruitless attempts, Gala gave up in frustration.
“Come, help us pack, child,” Esther said, leading Gala into the house. “We need to get going right away.”
*
The trip to Kelvin’s territory took a couple of days, with Gala enjoying every moment of their travels—unlike Esther and Maya, who grumbled about how uncomfortable it was to be stuck on a buggy for such a long time. The two women complained about roadside food (which Gala loved), the scenery (which Gala found most fascinating), the chill at night (which Gala found refreshing), and the heat of the sun during the day (which Gala found pleasant on her skin). Most of all, however, they complained about Gala’s boundless energy and enthusiasm for the simplest things—something they could not even begin to understand, much less relate to.
Unlike her first eventful day at the village, the trip passed without any further incidents. Maya and Esther did their best to keep Gala out of sight of the passersby, and Gala did her best to occupy herself with observing the world around her—and with surreptitious attempts to do magic.
To her great disappointment, she couldn’t replicate anything she’d done before. She couldn’t even get in touch with Blaise. He had contacted her a couple more times, saying how much he missed her, but she had been unable to respond—a form of muteness she found extremely unpleasant. The lack of control over her magical abilities drove her crazy, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She was hoping, however, that her creator would ultimately be able to teach her how to tap into that hidden part of herself. When she saw Blaise again, she was not about to let him out of her sight until she learned to do sorcery at will.