My hands feel like lead. Heavy and stiff they rest in my lap, a pair of useless rusted heaps that have fallen into disrepair. Look at them. Pale. Weak.

I can barely move them.

“My hands...” Welled wetness dawdles down my cheeks.

“Oh, hush! Nothin’ wrong with dem hands. Pink and ‘ealthy as ever.”

My focus stays on my powerless fingers. I do not address the ceaseless positivity of my moronic mentor. How could he know? How dare he even try to placate me with words. I have lost everything.

Everything. That dumb bastard has—

“Ya sniffin ya lip again, Lad! Don’t you go finkin’ meanly of me or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?”

“Ah, got ya eyes on me now does ya?” I hate to admit it but his threat had earned my ire and my attention. He brought his pink, bulbous, dark-pored, hairy-nostrelled nose to mine. A yellow toothed grin glinted out of his grey and frazzled beard. “You always pout and pucker and snorts and huffs when ya thinkin’ angry meannesses at me. You does it more and I’ll turn you frog-wise, I will.”

“I’d like to see you—”

“Ye can’t block me at the moment, Lad. Thinks on that. Not a ants hatful of magic in ye at the moment. Is why ye’ve been mopin’ about, remember? So! Cut. Your. Crap.”

I bite my lip to stay the words. Not because they would have been mean. Not because I am afraid of him. It is because they would have been spells and...and they wouldn’t have worked. Not now. Not ever again. Three days now and I haven’t been able to so much as conjure a spark, every potion I have stirred has turned to an inedible soup.

A pair of pale palms and wilted grey fingers stare up at me from my lap. Why are they so heavy?

“My hands...”

“Oh, fer Liam’s Rake! Yer hands are fine! You. Are. Fine!”

“I can’t use magic!” I am standing and screaming down at the hunched and squat creature that has failed to teach me anything of magic. It’s his fault. It’s his fault that I’ve lost my gift! “Magic! Everything I am and was and would have been, Gerbond! All of it gone. You have no idea — no idea at all — what that means to me. I. I.”

He’s taller than me again. My knees had given way. I am sat and my hands are in my lap and they are so very heavy.

“I. I am...weak.”

“Lad. Jass, listen. Yer feelin’ weak cause ya magic is...see, we Mage-folk, we uses magics e’en when we don’t wants ta! Is in our blood the stuff is. Gives us pep. Makes us live longer.”

“And mine is gone...forever.”

“What is magics, Lad?”

“Power—Ack!” I grabbed my ear and glared at him...but whats the point of anger. Having my ears twisted by stronger people was the way of my life now.

“Magics can gets ye power, Lad, but it ain’t power itself. Yer a smart one, talented e’en, but ye always rushed through the basics.”

“I know the basics...”

“Puh! What ye knows is basic spells. Hey! Look at me, Lad!”

He does not, can not, understand. I am nothing now. Less than nothing.

A splotchy, ugly face fills my view. He has crouched and practically put his head into my hands so he could star up at me. His glassy, liver-yellowed eyes are...he seems to...

I feel a hand gloved in callouses take mine.

“Lad. Magics ain’t power. Its energy. Takes magics to do spells and make potions and enchantses.”

“And what?” My cheeks are wet and he had blurred. “I’m out of magic, now?”

“For the moment, yeah. And I ain’ts surprised! You’ve been spellin’ and castin’ and brewin’ a storm since ye got ‘ere! Surprised ye didn’t go dry earlier.”

“...wait. Wait, It’ll...will it come back?”

“Puh! Yeah, ye bloody idgit! If ye stop tryin’ to force it. If ye actually rest. If ye stop worryin' and whinin' and wait...wait in peace and quiet...and do ye damned bloody chores!”

“It’ll come back!”

“I means...y'chores won’t actually help, but—”

“When? How long does it take?”

“Well, ye has a big tank, Lad. Is why they's all impressed wit ye. So...a whiles, I'd say. I comes good after a nap and a sandwhich. Maybes a quiet weekend if I'd been busy-like. Just, relax and don’t rush it. Plenty to read up on and learn whiles ye wait.”

My hands. Pink. Boring. Free of magical pep...but only for a moment. I just have to wait.

“I...suppose I should start at the basics, then. Where...where do I start?”

“Ah, well! Would ye look at that. I has an apprentice instead of a bloody prodigy. Come on, Lad. To the garden.”

“Meditation?”

“Puh! Slugs in the ‘erb patch, Lad.” He stands and walks away. “’spose I might as teach ye about there uses. ‘Erbs and the slugs, that is.”