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The sharp sound of the paper tearing made the two witches, and the single apprentice turn their head.
It was a small noise—too small and quiet for most people to notice, as the rain hammered on against the roof of their atelier from outside, and the fireplace crackled inside, burning the wood into cinders. But perhaps the rain let up just a little bit then, the fireplace briefly halted its advance on the firewood it fed on for just a moment, letting the two witches’ ears pick up the sound from just slightly below them, somewhere from the rug where the four young girls sat around.
One liked taking the corner seat of the rug, farthest away from the fireplace. She sat closest to the witch with the dark hair, her back to him so she does not obscure the light coming from the candle in front of her. Her sigils are much neater, with steadier, well-practiced lines, as if she has been performing it her entire life. When the sound seemingly reverberated around the small space, the girl briefly lifted her head from the papers and ink bottle in front of her. But upon finding everyone still in their places, not having moved at all, she carried on with her work, one hand brushing her dark curls away from her line of sight.
The witch that sat next to her—or rather, laid on his belly next to her—had a book opened in front of him, lazily turning the pages, mentally noting down the girl’s annotations and notes slipped between the perfectly drawn sigils on the book, as if he has read the textbook before—perhaps more than once. Next to the book, he had a bowl of his dinner, quickly getting cold, only half-eaten. His eyes were only a little focused on the book in front of him, only half paying attention to the words. Perhaps that was why the sound of the ripping paper was so evident when he heard it, making him halt his reading at all, eyeing the direction the sound came from.
Another girl sat closer to the fireplace, although still quite a distance away from where the sound came from. She, like the other girls, had foregone wearing their sea blue cloaks, leaving them in their white tunics. The smooth fabric of hers pooled around her feet, like waves of milky water, while she sat hunched over her writing tools. Near her feet, curled up on the cushion that her tunic made, a fuzzy-looking creature with a long torso and abdomen dozed away, impartial to the happenings of the atelier, or the sound of the ripped paper, just as she was.
The witch that sat on the armchair behind her was one of the two that noticed the ripping sound from near the fireplace. His posture was a little hunched, two long legs crossed upon the armchair so he could make room for the young apprentice leaning against it. His hands were tangled in the apprentice’s hair, not too long ago complaining about her long hair obscuring the light, and that she should get it out of her way unless she wanted a rapidly deteriorating eyesight for studying in dim lighting. His fingers stopped the weaving movements, only halfway through the braid, when his ears perked up to the sound of the ripping paper.
Perhaps it was evident that the only apprentice who had noticed the sound was the one sitting across from the sound-maker. She was absent-mindedly curling her fingers through her locks, something she did when she’s thinking. She was still hung up about her sigils, and was truthfully getting a little uncomfortable and fidgety from sitting so close to the fireplace, the right side of her face was getting too warm, and she wanted to move closer to the witch sitting on the armchair to ask about something, but she heard the sound before she could, finding the piece of paper in tatters, just across from her.
The sound-maker, on the other hand, who sat across from the apprentice, whose left side and left cheek must be too overly warm by now, had her head in her hands. Her bright hair obscured her face, but her gaze was completely unreadable, as she had shoved her entire face against the rug and her papers. The girl across from her almost flinched when the sound-maker nearly knocked over a perfectly almost full bottle of ink with her elbow.
The apprentice frowned, her concerned gaze directed to her peer sitting across from her. “Coco?”
The witch sitting on the corner of the rug lifted his head to peek and see. “Is she okay?”
The dark-haired apprentice that sat next to him, only finally noticing that something was taking place, lifted her head as well, “What’s going on, Tetia?”
The apprentice sitting next to the fireplace did not respond to the question, but she saw Coco lift her head slightly, just enough for her hands to slip underneath her face and wipe her eyes.
Her voice was muffled against the material of the rug when they came out of her lips. “I don’t understand. Why is my spell not working?”
It was quite a somber moment. Not just for the frustrated apprentice, but perhaps for them all.
It solidified something that Tetia had always known: they were apprentices. They were students. They were studying. They were lengths away from having the knowledge and skills that real witches have, that their masters have. Perhaps living her day to day life in their small atelier, with three other witches in training, has made her lose sight of that sometimes.
She inched closer, using one of her hands to balance her body weight against the rug. She tried her best to keep her voice level. “It’s okay, Coco. We can ask Master Qifrey what’s wrong with it.”
Tetia could see the state her papers are in. As a newer apprentice in the atelier, as an outsider only recently introduced to witchcraft, Coco’s sigils were not as stable as even Richeh’s, who Tetia always thought held her pen at a very odd angle. Before the atelier, Coco must have never drawn sigils at all. The crests must have looked overly bizarre to Coco the first time she had seen them, more so the first time she drew them. These unstable, wobbly lines were the ones Tetia saw littering her peer’s working area, and perhaps was also the source of her despair.
Before moving a little closer, she moved the ink bottle away with her free hand. Her hands froze, however, when her peer did not lift her head, or move an inch.
Not knowing what to do, she lifted her head and eyed the armchair, eyes immediately finding the one of her teacher’s, only slightly obscured by the glass of his spectacles. His hands seemed to be working on autopilot when he secured the braid in his hands with a ribbon, the apprentice sitting in front of him, whose hair was now braided behind her back, was only eyeing the scene before her with her pensive and thoughtful gaze, not making any suggestion that she would move anytime soon, although Tetia thought it might be because of the brushbuddy snoozing on her skirt.
The older witch stood from his seat, making sure to step around the apprentice on the rug in front of him. “Oh, Coco.”
Tetia watched as her mentor knelt next to Coco, tucking his skirt underneath his shins and gingerly placing his palm against the material of the tunic on her back. He leaned his head down, even though both he and Tetia knew that they could not make eye contact with her at her current state.
“Do you want to show me which part you’re struggling with?” Master Qifrey asked with a lowered voice.
Tetia was still frowning, was still frozen in her seat across from her peer, biting her bottom lip without herself noticing. It took a moment, enough for flames from the fireplace to finish burning through a log and let out a gentle crackle, for Coco to slowly lift her head.
Her voice was thick in her throat when she said, “I don’t know.” Her hands gestured to the papers in front of her, “I think I ripped my last one.”
Master Qifrey’s smile was gentle when he said, “That’s alright. Just draw me a new one and we’ll figure it out together.”
Tetia offered the two a smile, which Coco caught when she wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her tunic.
She saw Master Qifrey getting into a more comfortable position on the rug. “I think it’s evident that nobody is going to immediately be good at something,” he said matter-of-factly, loud enough for the entire room to hear. “Nobody is just born with talent.”
The apprentice sitting next to him didn’t say anything, still sniffling as she picked up a blank piece of paper to attempt her sigils on.
“I think wanting to practice and try at all is what makes someone great. That’s why students are so incredible to me,” Master Qifrey said, continuing to speak. “They’re so resilient, enduring the burdens of discipline and new knowledge and skills that they have to constantly consume.”
There was a chuckle from near the back of the room. Tetia watched as Master Olruggio, still in his laying-down position, flipped through the page of the book splayed on the rug in front of him. “You weren’t much of a disciplined student yourself, Qifrey.”
And in a bright, sing-song voice, without skipping a beat, Master Qifrey retorted. “I don’t see you performing discipline now yourself, Olly.”
Tetia could hear a gentle giggle from the corner of the room. The dark-haired apprentice sitting next to Master Olruggio covered her lips with her fingers when she did, her smile only thin, and the laugh she let out so quiet that Tetia was afraid she had misheard it.
“Agott laughed,” the apprentice with the long braid stated.
Agott’s obsidian eyes reflected the embers of the fireplace while her head was still lifted, but she quickly ducked it back down. Tetia could almost imagine the scarlet powdering her cheeks that would’ve been evidently visible if the room wasn’t so dark. Agott should be thankful the rain was not letting up anytime soon, and that the clouds covered so much sunlight.
“Were you not a disciplined student, Master Qifrey?”
Tetia’s smile widened a little when she heard the quiet voice.
Coco now sat on her hunches, her body folded over her lap, pen lifted from the paper she had barely started her new glyph on. She turned her head to the side to see her tutor better.
“I heard he liked running away from the Great Hall,” Tetia shrugged.
From the corner of the room, Master Olruggio closed his book shut, lifting up his head straighter. “That’s true.”
“What a troublemaker,” the apprentice with the braid frowned slightly.
“That’s why he never remembered the layout of the Great Hall. He’s never even there,” Master Olruggio said again, now sitting up. Tetia could slightly hear the way his bones popped a little when he stretched. “Caused a whole lot of trouble for his master and everything.”
Master Qifrey sighed in exasperation, his back a little hunched. “I admit…” he trailed off, as if looking for a way to polish his image a little. Upon finding no words that could, he sighed, “I admit, I was quite the rebellious apprentice in my youth.”
Agott was no longer poring over her sigils when she asked, “I thought you trained under Master Beldaruit?”
“Yes, I did, but that does not immediately mean that I have traits of the Wise, does it?” Master Qifrey said, almost in a whiny tone.
Tetia regarded Master Qifrey’s complaint a little.
“Richeh agrees,” she heard the voice say. The youngest apprentice was stroking the brushbuddy sitting near her feet, sigils, papers, pen, and ink entirely abandoned. “Richeh is not unwell and lazy like Master Olruggio.”
Tetia heard Agott’s laugh from the corner of the room again, this time sounding more like a snicker, followed by a, “Me neither.”
“Hey,” she heard Master Olruggio chide them both. “How many times do I have to say it to you, I’m not your master.”
Tetia managed to hold back the urge to roll her eyes, but Agott did not. “Of course.”
“But you two are right, you know?”
The four apprentices’ attention was now directed towards the witch sitting closer to the fireplace. He had now sat more comfortably on his bottom, tucking his knees against his chest and hugging them with his arms.
“You study under your masters, but you are inherently your own person,” Master Qifrey continued. “I can only teach you how to draw glyphs and make your magic come to life, but as for your resilience and passion, that only comes from within yourself.”
The sitting room was quiet, spare the crackles of the fireplace. Tetia could feel as if the flow of time had come to a complete halt upon hearing Master Qifrey’s words.
Coco may be frustrated of the suddenness, the novelty of her predicament, the complicated rules and sigils needed to make a glyph to perform witchcraft, especially because she was an outsider who did not understand the inner workings of a spell. Tetia was much more privileged to have at least known of how magic worked. Creating something herself, doing the work with her own two hands, however, was something completely new, something that she could not have anticipated before she started studying.
When Coco joined their atelier, she was overjoyed by their inherent similarity. It was like looking at the mirror, in the form of another person in the atelier who enjoyed the wonders of magic just as much as her. She was baffled by the sheer lack of excitement for witchcraft in her bubble before, as most witches, who had seen and perhaps used magic since they were no taller than their mothers’ knees, were no longer surprised by the wonders of magic. But Coco was different, she did not take magic for granted like most witches did. Tetia was like Coco.
And yet, Tetia was not like Coco. She was not new to witchcraft, she was not new to the rules of glyphs, or the doodle of sigils, or the special ink needed to cast spells with. She was not new to the master-apprentice system, or the atelier. She was not new to the contraptions that perform magic without the caster being in the vicinity. And yet, she was not immune to the frustration, or the fatigue, of poring over glyphs that just did not make sense, and explanations from books that she just could not comprehend.
And yet she and Coco were still here, in the atelier, in front of their fireplace in the sitting room, books opened and papers strewn around them, ink bottles half-empty, poring over the shapes of their sigils and the completion of their circles. Tetia has never felt the complete desperation of learning magic, not because she was resilient, but because she was passionate. She had a need in herself to do magic that helped people and made people happy. And she was not ready to give up just yet, at least not before she could use her own magic for good.
However, she smiled. “That can’t be all true, Master,” she said. Master Qifrey, in turn, frowned a little in her direction, finding his apprentice’s disagreement. “I wouldn’t be ablaze with passion if I didn’t have such a patient mentor.”
Master Qifrey looked surprised. Tetia could see the flicker of solace in his bright irises, before, as quick as lightning, they disappeared again.
“That’s very kind of you, Tetia,” Master Qifrey said, a gentle, almost controlled smile finally blossoming on his lips.
From the back of the room, Tetia heard a gruff voice say, “Don’t spoil him too much.”
Agott snickered again. “Just say you’re jealous that Master Qifrey is getting praised and you’re not, Master Olruggio.”
“I am not!” he insisted.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Master Olly,” Tetia said, using the nickname to praise him. “Who would have thought you were a prodigy in your youth?”
Coco lifted her head a little, and although her eyes were still a little watery, she managed to smile when she said, “You were the creator of the Glowstone Path. It was my favorite spell back when I still lived in the village.”
Richeh nodded, “Master Olruggio is quiet and patient.”
Agott rolled her eyes again, “Let’s not let all of this get into his head.”
Master Olruggio’s words were directed only for the apprentice sitting closest to him when he frowned and said, “I thought we were exchanging pleasantries.”
She sighed, “Fine. You’re talented and detail-oriented, I guess,” she started, before adding. “And you read over my annotations and correct them even though you’re “not my real master”,” Agott said, making air quotes with one hand.
Master Qifrey chuckled before Master Olruggio could deny it. “Does he, now? This is the first time I’ve heard of it.”
Agott swiveled her head to the direction of the fireplace so fast, it surprised Tetia. She did not know the girl could move that quickly.
“Oh…I’m sorry for not inquiring about my studies to you, Master Qifrey,” she said apologetically, the confident air she had used around Master Olruggio quickly dissipating.
“No, no, that’s alright, Agott,” Master Qifrey said quickly. “Master Olly is just as much your mentor as I am.”
Master Olruggio was ready to retort. “For the last time—”
“Not officially, no,” Master Qifrey cut him off, although he was regarding the entire room with his words. “But witchcraft is not a two-dimensional knowledge, nothing is ever just right or just wrong. You cannot study it and experience its entirety from just one master. I expect all of you to explore new styles and principles of magic once you leave this atelier.”
Tetia smiled, the words reverberating through her chest, echoing. “Of course, Master Qifrey.”
Coco silently nodded, the pen gripped in her fingers so tight, her knuckles were turning white.
“Well, back to your studies now,” Master Qifrey announced in finality, a good sign that their little chit-chat was ready to come to a halt. “Come tell me when your glyph is ready for me to observe Coco.”
She lifted her head, “Where are you going, Master Qifrey?”
“The kitchen. I’m going to make some tea and a little snack for you girls, since you’re all working so hard,” he said lightly, crossing his legs underneath him so he could push himself to stand from his seat. As he started walking away from the sitting room, he looked over at Master Olruggio. “Would you please come and help?”
Tetia could see the Watchful Eye pick himself up with a little groan, but more as if it was straining for him just to stand, rather because he was complaining of being asked to help in the kitchen. If she had sat closer, perhaps at Agott’s distance, or had strained her ears harder, Tetia imagined that she would be able to hear Master Olruggio’s knees popping.
The two witches disappeared into the kitchen, but Tetia found herself now equipped with a newfound fortitude. She gripped her pen a little harder, the smile on her face a little wider.
She took a blank piece of paper and started her next glyph, a simple line drawn for the starting sigil.