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Right now, a boy is enrolling in a course called Introduction to Applied Magics, and this single choice will alter the field of magic, the world of love, and his entire reincarnation cycle.
•
Win’s interest in magic is more theoretical than practical. Strict regulations limit the general population’s use of practical magic to a very narrow scope, so Win prefers to think about the potential of magic instead. What it could do in certain circumstances. In the theoretical, there are no boundaries keeping his magic locked down.
Win’s great-grandmother made the designs for several of their world’s brightest and most prominent constellations, so reaching for the stars is quite literally in his blood.
He signs up for Introduction to Applied Magics to cover any basics his previous education might have overlooked, and to get some high marks without too much effort. His course load promises a lot of sleepless nights, so there’s a clear benefit in taking a course or two that’ll keep his average high.
His first assignment of the semester is to create an invisible link between two inanimate objects. It’s a skillset many adults learn and rely on for rudimentary tasks like stabilizing furniture in an earthquake or adhering books to the wall over a bathtub. He’s to create the link and then write a paper on his process, but as usually happens with Win, he gets distracted looking into theory.
The fanciful introduction of one paper seizes his attention.
“There are innumerable questions surrounding the origins of intangible adhesion. Our modern methods involve the adhesion of inanimate to inanimate, and yet the first practical application of an adhesive link might have, in fact, been between two objects of arguably animate nature.“
Win stares at the sentences, parsing the meaning into simpler terms. What Win’s older brother uses to stick Win’s clothes to the ceiling…someone might have used on living beings?
Stifling a bolt of horror, Win continues reading.
Gradually, with each detail stacked on the one that preceded it, his breaths grow shallower and shallower.
•
Less than an hour later, he sprints up the stairs of his parents’ house, grabs his younger brother and older brother by the wrists, and drags them out of their respective bedrooms.
Waan trips and curses at him.
View just says, “Hia?” inside a squeak.
Win ignores both of them and walks them down the stairs.
“Do we know where he’s taking us?” View asks Waan.
Waan tries prying Win’s fingers off to no avail, then tells View, “No, it appears we fucking don’t. Win!”
Win waits until they’re in the living room, then he pushes both of them onto the sofa. View first, then Waan.
“I need to talk to you,” he says. His voice is wavering, like he’s on the edge of hysteria.
Well. He is.
View studies Win with cautious concern, then looks to Waan.
“I think you broke my fucking wrist,” Waan says, flat. He circles his fingers around the alleged injury and frowns at it.
Win says, “I’m sorry, but I’m panicking.” He shoves a trembling hand through his hair. “Are you really hurt?” he asks.
Waan folds his arms and glares up at him. “No, but it did freak me out. Asshole.”
Win nods, accepting that, and forces his thoughts into order. “Has either of you ever studied the Highlands Suicides?” he asks.
View says, “You mean, like, in school? No.”
Waan says, “We covered it in a literature class, why?”
Win says, “Because I think it was me. And someone I loved.”
•
The Highlands Suicides.
One hundred and ten years ago, two young people took their lives in a mysterious double-suicide that continues to inspire novels and movies and dramas to this day. On a blazing February night, every hour on the hour, two simultaneous fires burst into life in different locations all across Bangkok. Small fires, no injuries, but clearly magical in their relative containment and short duration. They were a message.
Eventually, it was discovered that everything that had burnt had been imported from the highlands.
Highlands locals then reported an odd suicide in their area. Two young people set fire to an abandoned house, then drank toxic doses of sleeping draught and died in each other’s arms on the grass outside, overlooking the valley.
Freshly burnt into the flesh of their ankles were incomprehensible matching sigils that no one had ever seen before.
It’s believed that locals identified the bodies, but it seems that historians didn’t consider their names important enough to record.
What was of more interest to them and to scientists of the time were the marks on their ankles and the residue of powerful, ancient magic surrounding them.
Protecting them.
•
One hundred and ten years later, Win sits alone on the floor of his bedroom and traces the mark on his ankle.
It was there when he was born, and the doctors told his parents it was a protective charm given to him by an ancestor. A wonderful gift, but not unusual. His mother has a sigil behind her ear. His cousin has one under his foot.
No one questioned why Win’s sigil was illegible. It was ancient, maybe.
Maybe the ancestor just had poor handwriting, Win liked to think.
Now, he doesn’t know what to think.
The sigil in the book—in every book about the Highland Suicides—matches his exactly. It’s such a complex thing, with a chaotic mess of whorls and dots, that he’s not surprised movies and dramas have changed the design in their…adaptations of the story.
He doesn’t sleep that night.
He wonders.
•
There are two people in a room together.
The room is dark, save for a candle placed in the center of the floor. Dust-cloaked sheets cover every piece of furniture, and the candlelight uses their thick, obscure shapes to cast ominous shadows onto the walls. Outside, drumrolls of winter rain lash the windowpanes, and sometimes flashes of lightning reveal the tattered state of the heavy burgundy curtains shielding the room from unwanted prying eyes.
One person is applying disinfectant to a burn on the other person’s ankle. When they speak, it’s quiet. The house is empty, but they’re accustomed to hiding.
“How does it feel?”
“Like it hurts. Because it does.”
“I’ve never heard you scream like that.”
“Sure you have.”
“What, like someone’s tearing your arm off?”
“Okay, no. Excuse me, my jokes aren’t at their cleverest right now.”
“Because of the pain?”
“Because of the pain.”
The person without a burn on their ankle takes a thin cerulean stick from a box of dozens like it and holds it in the flame for a few seconds. Once it’s caught fire, he blows on the tip and watches for a tense moment as the smoke curls up from the charred wood.
“I hate this,” they say. “I think I’ve said it three times but for the record: I hate this. And I just watched you do it, so I want to do it even less now.”
The person holding a bandage to their leg quirks their mouth into a half-smile. They tug their companion closer by the neck for a kiss and whispers, “Do it quick. I’ve got the ice ready.”
Their foreheads touch. A resigned breath. A squeeze to the back of the neck.
“Okay, I’m ready. Hold my hand?”
“I’ve got you. I won’t let go.”
As the smoking tip touches unmarked skin, a scream—the second like it tonight—pierces the silence.
•
Who did this with me?
I need to find them.