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“Ok, so how do you feel when you use your dust magic?” Milo asks.
Zack snorts dryly at Milo’s carefully chosen name. Dust, because the people who are caught in it turn to dust. Zack has been calling it dark magic, or death magic. But Milo is being delicate to spare him the guilt. It doesn’t work, but he appreciates the effort.
“It’s cold. It’s really cold, not like my healing magic at all.” He says. He is sitting on the soft grass, opposite Milo. Trying to resist the urge to hide under a blanket and avoid this entirely.
“Ok. Do you feel a tug?”
“Yes.” Zack says. “Like when I heal, but colder.”
“And this always happens when you’re overwhelmed or cornered.” Milo says thoughtfully. “How do you heal?”
“Uh…” Zack hesitates. “I feel the tug, and I follow it.”
“And you feel that tug whenever someone’s hurt.” Milo nods. “So you need that tug, you can’t activate it by yourself. Maybe that’s the start, teaching you to activate your healing magic when no one around you is hurt.”
“Can I do that?” Zack can’t help but feel a little embarrassed. He knows nothing about magic or how it works. He is just stumbling along blindly, using instincts that were muted by years of training and punishment.
“Probably.” Milo shrugs. “When I was little I could only make my barriers when I had to protect myself, or someone else. It was all instinct. And now-“ He waves his hand. A tiny, pink shield pops up next up him. He wiggles it in the air, then makes it pop out of existence. “- I can do it whenever I want. I can feel for it.”
“What does it feel like?” Zack asks curiously.
“It’s like a little ball inside me.” Milo seems to be recalling something that he was taught. “It feels hard and solid to me, to Melissa it depends on the element she’s reaching for. Hot for fire, cool and wet for water, cold and hard to grab for air, solid for earth. Your healing magic will probably be warm, and your dust magic will probably be cold.”
“You don’t have to call it that.” Zack says. “It’s dark and scary and horrid, we can admit that.”
“It’s just magic. It’s scary because it’s uncontrollable. When you can control it, it’ll be less scary.” Milo says cheerfully, patting his shoulder. “Ok, try healing first. Close your eyes and concentrate.”
Zack shuts his eyes. “What am I concentrating on?”
“Think about healing. Think about how it feels, think about what it looks like. Imagine you’re reaching out in the dark for it.” Milo recites. Zack tries to follow his instructions. “Just keep reaching, and keep concentrating. It might take a long time at first, but you’ll find it.”
Zack reaches, and reaches, and reaches. Eyes screwed shut, he concentrates as much as he can. And then he feels something. It feels warm, pleasantly warm. A little ball, soft and round. He imagines grabbing it.
“You did it!” Milo exclaims. Zack’s eyes fly open. His hands are glowing, a golden light. “I knew that you could do it.”
Zack smiles back, face heating a little. “Thank you.”
“Can I?” Milo holds out his hand. Zack nods, so Milo takes his hands. “Oh, that’s warm. It feels nice.”
“Is anything happening?” Zack asks. He feels even warmer as Milo holds his hands, and he is pretty sure he knows why. He hopes his embarrassment about that isn’t visible on his face.
“Nah, I’m not hurt. But I feel warm and relaxed all over.” Milo says. “It’s a nice feeling.”
He lets go. Zack imagines letting go of the ball, and the light disappears. “Great job!” Milo cheers. “I know it takes a long time now, but the more you do it the easier it’ll get, until you can do it without even thinking.”
Zack nods. He feels better, more relaxed than he did before. Milo squeezes his hand. “You wanna try the dust magic?”
Zack takes a deep breath and nods. He closes his eyes and imagines the cold feeling. The cold tug. The fear, followed by numbness, like being dunked in a frozen river.
The ball isn’t soft or warm this time. It is freezing cold, and it is sharp. It almost hurts to grab. He holds it anyway.
His head swims. The darkness gets darker, and darker. He panics, trying to pull away from the ball, but it won’t let go. He can’t let go. Cold water rushes over him, freezing him, then numbing him. Numbing the panic.
When he wakes up, he is under a blanket. Milo is sitting next to him, face creased with worry. His eyes light up when he hears Zack groan. “Zack!”
“Wha… I lost control.” Zack realises, horror settling into his cold bones. He clenches his hands, his stomach twisting.
“You were never going to get it right away.” Milo pats his hand. “You did well by controlling when it comes out. You just need to learn to control it after that.”
“Did I hurt you?!” Zack panics. Milo was so close. He can’t have had much time to get away.
“No.” Milo reassures him. “Burned a hole in my trousers, but I’ll patch them up.”
Zack glances down. He can see a small, nasty looking burn on Milo’s leg. He gasps. “Milo!”
“It’s fine, Zack. I’ve had worse.” Milo soothes, rubbing his hand with his thumb.
Zack pulls away. He can see the burn scar on Milo’s palm, from the first time Zack used this dark magic. Guilt throbs through him. “I keep hurting you. I don’t wanna hurt you.”
Milo reaches for his hands. Zack limply lets him take them. “It’s not your fault. We’ll work on it. Rest for now, ok? You’re exhausted.” He helps Zack lie back down, and sits next to him as he shuts his eyes and fails to sleep.
As the sky darkens, Zack chokes back tears. He is good at hiding distress, at hiding his pain in his pillow. He lies on his back, looking up at the sky as he thinks. Milo knows a lot about magic. But Milo knows how to use magic. That isn’t what Zack is trained in. Zack is trained in not using magic. Zack is trained in suppressing it.
His back itches as he thinks about it. He was taught to suppress his healing, he can bend those lessons to suppress his hurting. He can do this. He won’t hurt anyone else. He won’t be an evil mage.
He isn’t supposed to think like that anymore, but he can’t help it.
He opens his back and roots through it. Nearly everything here is new, either bought or ‘borrowed’, as Melissa would put it with a mischievous smile. And then Milo would giggle, a sound that worms into Zack’s soul and makes him warm and happy. Gods, he loves Milo. He loves Melissa, if in a different way. And he loves Cavendish and Dakota. That’s why he needs to do this. So he doesn’t hurt his friends.
At the bottom of his bag, crumpled from disuse, is his old cloak.
He can’t wear it. He needs to be able to do emergency healing, without stopping to remove his cloak. But he carefully tears the fabric, disconnecting the clasp. He hides it in his pocket, and takes a shaky breath.
Milo would hate this. Milo would be so upset if he knew. But Milo doesn’t need to know. Milo doesn’t need to know. No one needs to know.
He is protected from it by his clothes. Iron can’t burn anything aside from his flesh. But it still feels like it is burning a hole in his pocket.
A week or so later, they try again. They sit opposite each other, crossed legged. “Remember, it’s your magic.” Milo reminds him. “It takes over because you’re scared of it, because it overwhelms you. Try to remember that as long as you stay in control, you’ll be safe.”
Zack nods. Maybe he won’t need the iron. Maybe he can control it with only his will. But he would rather have it than not.
Seeking out the ball is easy. He has gotten good at seeking out the healing ball, and the darker ball is easier to find. He grasps it, wincing at the cold, at the sharp edges digging into him.
Immediately, he starts to panic. He can feel the cold washing over him, overwhelming him. His fear builds and builds, and his head gets fuzzy, and he knows that he is losing the battle.
He touches the clasp with the back of his hand. A burning pain shoots through him, forcing a whimper from his mouth. Immediately, a different kind of panic hits him. The training of his childhood kicks in. And the cold runs away like a frightened child.
He opens his eyes. Milo is staring at him. “Zack, what did you do?”
“I controlled it.” Zack lies, faking a smile. “I did it.”
Milo shakes his head. “Zack, what did you do?” He repeats, more stern. Sternness that is driven by worry.
“I just… didn’t get overwhelmed.” He tries, looking away. “Like you said.”
“Zack.” He flinches away. Milo studies his face. Then his eyes are drawn to his hand, hidden in his pocket. “Zack, can I see your hand?”
“Why?” His hand hurts. It throbs, a pulsing pain that makes him feel sick. It rubs against the inside of his pocket, sending twinges of pricking pain up his arm. He hates it. He hates it. But he didn’t hurt Milo, and that’s what matters.
“Zack, show me your hand.” Milo says, making eye contact with him despite his best efforts to avoid it.
Zack isn’t very good at saying no to Milo.
He slowly removes his hand from his pocket and holds out out. Milo gasps. “Zack…”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Zack mutters, looking away as Milo takes his hand.
“Zack, you can’t hurt yourself!” Milo sounds distressed.
“And I can’t hurt you. And I know what I’d rather do.” Zack says quietly.
“Zack. Zack, you can’t do this. Gods.” Milo takes his other hand. “You can learn to control your magic. You don’t have to hurt yourself.”
“That’s always worked to control my magic when willpower doesn’t.” Zack mutters.
Milo looks closer at his hand, at the burn scars covering it. Some, on in his fingers and palm, are clearly from messing up and touching iron by accident. Usually his clasp. But some, especially the ones on the back of his hand, don’t look like accidents. “Did… did she teach you to do this?” Milo’s voice shakes with fury.
Zack shakes his head. “When my baby brother got hurt, I was so tempted to heal him, I couldn’t resist it. So I touched the clasp and stopped myself. And then I just kept doing it. She said that I was good for doing it.” He remembers the day that she found out. She patted him on the head and called him good, and he felt so proud. For being good, for pleasing his teachers.
Milo launches to hug him. “Zack…” His voice is choked with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Zack lets his hand go limp, wincing at the pain.
Milo squeezes him, then draws back. “Hey, let’s put some salve on that burn.” He takes a pot from his backpack and takes Zack’s hand, gently spreading the salve over the fresh burn. Zack winces, then relaxes at the soothing coolness. Milo is gentle and reassuring as he applies it. Zack curls up against him, allowing his eyes to slide shut. It feels nice.
“Ok, there.” Milo stops, deftly wrapping a bandage around with his usual gentleness. “I wish I could do more.”
“We’ve all been iron burned before.” Zack points out, resting his head on his shoulder.
“This is different.” Milo says quietly.
“I know.” Zack concedes.
They sit in silence for a while. “What did you use to do it?” Milo asks.
“I took the clasp off of my old cloak.”
“Can I take it?” Milo requests gently. Zack hesitates. He needs it. He needs to be able to control his dark magic, he could someone he loves, or worse! But Milo sounds so upset. So he nods. “Thanks.”
Milo puts on a glove and takes the clasp from Zack’s pocket. He shudders. He feels so terrible that Zack felt the need to resort to this.
He wraps the iron in some fabric, puts it in a pouch, and then puts it in his backpack. “Thank you, Zack.”
“Mhm.”
Milo rubs his shoulder. His stomach churns. He just wants to help Zack. He just wants Zack to see himself the way Milo sees him. Brave, kind, warm, heroic. Zack is wonderful, Milo loves him so much. He just wishes that Zack could love himself. That Zack wasn’t so willing to set himself on fire to stop his friends from getting burned.