Cosima and Massimo were sitting on a square table organizing some books Eloisa had selected. Most of them were about pyromancy.
"I can't understand what's written here."
Massimo complained, reading the first page of a book called Fire: What's better, potency or spreadness?
"Obviously you don't understand, you don't know nothing about magic."
Cosima replied condescendly, unable to get where Massimo was coming from.
"No, I mean, look! Eloisa's family never made calligraphy!"
He claimed in response showing the book. It was written by hand and he was right, the words were indecipherable and the author couldn't even write straight.
"Wow, you were right!"
Now Cosima was surprised. The person who wrote this copy probably had shaking hands.
Eloisa came after a while with a box in her hands. It was approximately the same size as a shoe box. She put it on the table and opened it, revealing a bowl, a bottle of water and tiny bags with dust from multiple colors each.
"The process is simple Massimo. You are to put your hand in the bowl, which I will fill with water. Then I'm going to spread the dust over the water, if you have affinity to the element the dust represents, it will move to the sides of the bowl, if not, then nothing will happen. Shall we start?"
Massimo noticed that Eloisa started to speak similarly to when she was recently summoned, maybe the Castle was subconsciously making her regain the accent and use the words that she usually has in the past.
"I understand, if I have affinity, then the dust will behave like pepper in water when you submerge your hand covered with soap."
"I have no idea what you are talking about."
Eloisa looked at him bewildered for a moment, then she started to prepare the device.
"What is this thing called?"
Asked Cosima, who had been quiet for a while.
"An elemental identificator. Silly name."
Eloisa made a gesture when she was ready, prompting Massimo do to his part.
"I bet the element is going to be water."
Cosima declared with a smile, Massimo smiled too; Eloisa looked at them funny.
Massimo put his hand in the water. Eloisa opened the first bag, it had some blue dust she spread over the water. Nothing happened to everyone surprise.
She repeated the task with red dust and yellow dust.
"It is neither water, nor fire, nor earth. If it isn't air then I will be unable to determine what it is, if you even have one. When this was made, electromancy and many others weren't considered elemental arts so there isn't any dust to represent them."
Opening the last bag, Eloisa spread the green dust over the water. This time it immediately moved to the borders of the bowl.
"So that's it, you are an air manasi, practicer of aeromancy."
Massimo wasn't very happy about it, it was obvious he preferred water.
"But... This doesn't make any sense! How can I have affinity to the air when I spent more than five hours swimming everyday!"
"Relax, it isn't like you can do water magic, you simply aren't going to be as good at it as you will be in air magic."
"But—."
"It also has all the sense of the world, you don't have many material possessions, because you are a very free person, so as a consequence, you don't want to be tied to the place where your things are, see? As free as the wind!"
"Well, how do I do magic?"
Eloisa remained completely still, holding the exact same face she had before Massimo made that question, she was trying so hard to answer but was unable to put her thoughts into words.
"It's like... When you know, imagine, like a new color."
Cosima tried to explain it easily, but not only she failed, she confused Massimo further.
"No no no no, first you have to use the mana connections in your soul and then you have to say the magical words; ermmm, I know a single air spell, the words are vento incontrollado. To open the mana connections you need to search inside of you and unlock the door of your soul."
"I don't get it."
"Well, go focus on understanding that while I go to the armory to see what I can find."
Eloisa left the place and Cosima couldn't hold her laughter, this was her vengeance against Massimo's laughter before. Usually he would have laughed too, but right now he was worried.
"What do you feel when you do magic Cosima?"
"It hurts, but it isn't incredibly painful, hmm, it's similar to stretching your body more than you are able to."
"So, it's like imagining a limb I don't have and using it."
"I mean, yes, but no."
Massimo covered his face with his hands. He already had an idea about how magic works, almost certain that it was like music in the sense that if you don't learn it when you are a child, it becomes exponentially harder. But that wasn't enough to discourage him. He also had two very terrible teachers; it wasn't the first time he had a bad teacher, but the difference was that failure meant death instead of a bad grade.
He needed to put his mind to the maximum, in the near future he was going to be needed and he was decided to not let Cosima and Eloisa down. He couldn't forget the impression Masarabi left in him. Eloisa repeated again and again that she was the strongest fire manasi in Europe two hundred years ago, but she didn't saw Masarabi. However, it was also true that he hasn't see Eloisa in action, so the combat between the two of them was an equation of two variables without any form of determining the value of a single one. It was without solution.
But could he let that to the luck? No, Massimo wasn't like that, luck was something belonging to the cards, and even then it was not completely true; his body, his blood and his soul was what brought Masarabi to this world and Massimo put over himself the responsibility to get rid of him. His mind went back to that new he saw on television about the explosion ocurred yesterday, could Masarabi be related to it?
I'm getting distracted.
Cosima was reading one of the books Eloisa brought, the title was A selection of a hundred fire spells by Alfonso Cobossi.
Seeing Massimo so focused on understanding the basics had inspired her to go further. Her mistake was to get comfortable with the scintilla spell, now she knew two spells; however the second one was just a better scintilla, so technically she was still at stage one and that was something she couldn't remain in.
One of the spells seemed interesting, latysso lamperós. The legend said: A greek spell suitable for defending yourself from nearby enemies, not recommended if you have allies close to you. It angered Cosima that this specific spell was the only one which legend didn't explain what it does.
Massimo is doing his best even if it isn't much. Eloisa is practically carrying us. How long I am going to allow me to get pampered? I want power.
That single thought distracted her from her lecture. Power. Why did she wanted it? To survive? To be recognized?
To get answers.
That response was perfect. Inside of her, tumultuous feelings, ideas, plans, theories and emotions were spinning as if they were a tornado. However, answers was a word that summed it up.
It was all very suspicious. She had been living unaffected by the exterior of her mansion but in reality all the persons in her life were searching for inmortality.
Inmortality, was it really living forever that good of an idea? Watching everyone and everything around you rot and die? Maybe if you could share the inmortality with those you love then it wouldn't be that horrible of an idea.
My father told me that my mother died. Was he researching inmortality before or after that? If Domenico is to be believed, then since before, but was it something he really wanted to do, or was he just continuing the Farfali legacy in the same way I wanted to do it when I offered my help to Domenico? This ritual. It requires twenty-six murders to be completed, was this the first time Domenico did something so despicably horrible or just a single act on a list? Were you participe of more heinous acts father? Oh how I wish you were here with me, I miss you and I want to ask you so many things! If it wasn't for that fire...
The monologue in her head stopped. Frozen. It was something it usually didn't happen, but she had reached an idea so shaking her internal discourse simply had to stop.
What if it wasn't an accident?
It had all the sense of the world; a manasi dying in a fire? He was obviously assassinated, why didn't she think of that before? Because she was naive. Who even was the one who told her that he died on an accident? She tried and tried so hard to remember it.
Domenico Abato. It was him. He came one night and asked me to open the door of the Mansion, but my father told me to never open the door, Domenico tried to get me to open it telling me that and I almost did, but I began to cry and ran away to my room, from where I didn't get out for the next three days. Was he trying to kidnap me there too? What could have happen to me if I opened it that night?
The spark orbiting her suddenly extinguished, leaving them in darkness.
Eloisa was moving very quickly, now that she was alone she could do what she wanted to do since she arrived. Taking a detour, she went to the cemetery instead of the armory.
The spark was bright enough for her to read the epitaphs in the tombstones. She quickly skipped through the first ones; they had been resting there centuries before she was born.
It didn't take her too much time to reach the tombs of the nineteenth century. One that had an statue of a couple hugging caught her attention.
"Mom, dad..."
She sighed gently touching the statue with her hands. Tears formed in her eyes and she tried so hard to hold back crying that her head started hurting. But it wasn't this what prompted her to come here. Tomasso had confirmed that the person she wanted to see more in the world was here.
Turning her head, she found him easily. His tombstone was smaller and had no decorations; ironically, it's simplicity made it stand out. Eloisa knew exactly why the tombstone was so different, she couldn't even imagine how many rules, laws and traditions had to be bent, ignored and broken just for him to be buried in the Cobossi cemetery. After all, the marriage never happened.
The tombstone was Riccardo Rinaldima's and next to it there was a very big one with an statue of Eloisa resembling a portrait of herself that was in what once was her room.
She couldn't bear this. Her family had made a symbolic tomb for her and put it next to Riccardo's. Lowering her gaze, she read the epitaphs; it was the same in both: May they found each other again after death.
"Aaa... Eughh... Aaa! AAAA!"
Eloisa broke down and cried hugging Riccardo's tombstone; she cried like a little girl, screaming, kicking the ground and scratching the tomb.
"I'M SORRY RICCARDO!!! I'M SORRY FORGIVE ME!!! Forgive me for not coming back... Forgive me for making you waste your life waiting for me..."
She cried as she never cried before; her chest burned with pain and her eyes were like a waterfall. All the times she cried before, she at the very least tried to maintain her noble appearance in front of the rest, but now she was alone and didn't have to think about what the others would think. She wasn't Eloisa, the hero, but Eloisa, the widow. No, she wasn't even that, because she was stolen from her chance to marry him.
"I wish to kill you Aleix, but time beated me; those who continue the ritual and your work will suffer my wrath. I will kill them. I will burn them. I will incinerate them. Nothing will remain, their tombs will be as empty as mine."
As she declared it, the last tears fell from her eyes. But she decided to remain hugging the tombstone for a bit longer. Until she was completely calmed down. Remaining in that position, she looked around, seeing the tombs of the family members she never met. At some meters at her left, something out of place made her stand up and get close to it.
She slowly touched it with her feet before find out what it was. When she realized, her blood went cold. It was the body of a bird, decapitated and surrounded by its own blood.
Eloisa could recognize the bird, it was similar to that one she made with the spell, with the difference this one had a magical stone inside that allowed it to outlive its creator and keep working for centuries, it was a sentry that already had a century when she was born and was part of the castle defenses.
But the blood still had color; it couldn't had happened more than a couple of hours ago. Somebody else was here in the castle and she just left Cosima and Massimo alone.
Insulting herself for her own stupidity, Eloisa went back running into the castle. The dead sentry also explained what had happened to the castle defenses: the intruder had destroyed them.
"Can you make the spark again Cosima? It's very cold right now."
Massimo complained rubbing his hands. Cosima looked a bit confused, she was repeating the spell and was able to conjure the spark, however, it disappeared almost immediately.
"I don't know what's happening Massimo, It didn't take me too much effort the first time"
"Maybe you are tired. Try resting a bit."
Massimo went to focus on the same thing and Cosima remained there without anything. She wished any of them thought about bringing the snacks out of the car before going into the castle.
She realized then that she really couldn't see anything. Not even her hands at centimeters from her face. It was like she was enveloped in darkness; just like in the ritual.
"Massimo! Massimo! The cultists! They are here!"
She whispered terrified at the same time she shook him.
"We have to get away from here."
She whispered again; even if she couldn't see him, she felt when Massimo nodded with his head in silence.
"Acuti umbra."
A voice said from somewhere at their back; both of them could recognize it, as it was the person who announced that they were awake and stabbed them.
Massimo made a painful noise and fell to the ground, Cosima felt some hot liquid be splashed over her back and quickly understood it was blood.
A spell was directed at her and Massimo moved behind so he got wounded instead. She got paralyzed by fear.
"COSIMA RUN!"
Massimo ordered from the ground. She was relieved to find he didn't die, but running was not the solution. What could she gain by running, at mere five seconds? The time it took her attacker to repeat the spell?
It was a single instant what it took her to decide what to do. She was a completely amateur, that's true and if she wasn't, she would have never in a hundred years tried it, however, this was the single option she had; the card that had in her hand and the only chance at surviving.
"Latysso lamperós!"
She could see it in slow motion. Her reflexes were excited to the maximum. She had all the time in the world to plan her next action. She didn't knew it, but what she was experimenting was what sports players denominate as "The Zone".
From the palm of her hand a spark formed itself into existence; then, in a fraction of a second the spark elongated into a whip that was thirty centimeters long. She could see how the surroundings where brightening and understood why her spells were failing. Her persecutor had an spell that descended temperature and made her scintillas die when cast.
A second later the whip was already at a meter of longitude and she could see Massimo struggling in the ground. The wound was like a cut in her back, deep enough to cause pain but not to do permanent damage. The spell was probably launched with the intention of incapacitating her, so they probably wanted to kidnap her once again.
Once second more and the spell was completed. A three meter long whip was in her left hand and the light was bright enough to see that her enemy was not one, but three. They were surprised too, obviously didn't expect her to defend.
However, the darkness was still surrounding them and Cosima was unable to do the spell correctly and was burning her hand, but they didn't seem to have noticed that yet. To put the situation in perspective, Cosima was a rose with a single thorn being grabbed by a hand who didn't expect to be perforated. But still was a flower against a human.
Massimo turned to see what was happening and found Cosima wielding a fierce weapon that doubled her in size protecting him from three men. A memory from his childhood that he had buried inside of him resurged; it was from the first time he went to swim, he should have been six years old back then.
His father had took him to the house of a friend that had a pool, but it was raining very strongly and his father didn't want to take the risk of him drowning, so they remained inside the house. Massimo was annoyed by this and waited for everyone to be distracted to sneak out.
He jumped into the pool and instantly he regretted his poor decision. The pool was three meters deep and he quickly found himself submerged, unable to breath. He fought to exhaustion trying to go up but he couldn't and the moment he gave up something clicked inside of him and he understood how to float and swim; saving his life.
He never told this to anyone fearing the severe scolding he would receive; but now he understood that he was in the same situation, he had to swim or die. So he once again searched inside of him.
What Cosima and Eloisa said made no sense; imagining a limb an using it. They had to be insane! Or were they right?
What if it's a matter of perspective?
In their heads, that's how they described the physical part of doing magic, but what if a most simple explanation existed? He remembered then a quote from a book about Leonardo Da Vinci, that said that Leonardo studied fish to understand the movement of birds. What could he take from this? Answers can come from unexpected places; obviously, this wasn't what the author intended when he wrote that. However, Massimo liked the concept of death of the author, which meant in its basis, that the intention of the author didn't matter and what the reader understands from it's work did matter. And that was what Massimo understood.
He knew magic was possible. He had seen it and he couldn't do it. What else was like that? Moving your ears. Massimo knew it was possible because Adriana had showed him and also he couldn't do it. So magic was like moving your ears. He had to find the muscle to do it in the same way Cosima had to find her soul. The conclusion he reached maybe was not so far-fetched from the instructions about the imaginary limb he heard before. So maybe and just maybe, Massimo was an actual genius and not just deluded?
Cosima whipped the whip against Vasil, which jumped back, hiding between Edoardo and Lorenzo.
Edoardo mumbled something and a section of the shadow in the form of a straight line became darker and traveled to the air at a tremendous speed, cutting the stone table without effort. Cosima was able to dodge it, but her whip got cut in half.
"Had we just killed Massimo and kidnapped Cosima like I said Vasil wouldn't have burned his arm, but you just had to do it in your own way didn't you?"
Lorenzo complained to Edoardo, while Vasil licked his wound.
"I'm not going to lie to you Lorenzo, when she started doing magic I got scared thinking Eloisa had taught her some powerful spells, but she is just a novice after all."
Massimo started to get up without taking a break in his mind. He imagined his whole body searching for the soul but he didn't found it.
Mind, body and soul. They are three different things even if they are related, I'm not going to find my soul on my body. My soul is not something I can command with my mind. Tell me soul, if you exist and you are me, how come I have never feel you before? Are you something beyond senses? Are you something beyond the world?
He felt something was different. He recognized that the soul was something outside the physical realm and with that realization he knew he had changed. There probably was a step zero before doing magic that involved admitting to oneself the existence of the paranormal? Not just knowing that is real and rationalizing it, but deeply believing in it?
Edoardo traced an arc in the air with his hand before reciting Acuti umbra once again. A line with the form of the hand movement was shot direct to Massimo's head.
His eyes opened as he saw the sharp shadow approaching him. If that touched him, he would die. His mouth moved on its own.
"VENTO INCONTROLLADO!!!."
Edoardo looked incredulous at Massimo. That was an advanced spell that could kill its user if used without care. The words of a conversation he had with Domenico appeared on his mind, but he couldn't remember if was he or him who said them: A manasi under stress can do the impossible.
As a following act to the pronunciation of the magic words, a burst of air came from his mouth with the speed of a hurricane. The shadow got deflected and hit the roof and the tremendous force pushed Edoardo against Lorenzo and Massimo against Cosima. All of them fell to the ground, leaving Vasil as the only one standing.
"Are you okay Massimo?"
Cosima asked standing quickly.
"Ai fain... id ju..."
Massimo tried to speak but the words didn't come and started coughing blood. The illumination of the whip made possible for Cosima to see what was wrong. And it was very simple actually; Massimo had the same problem as Cosima: He used a spell he was not prepared for and as a consequence, he had dislocated his jaw, lost some teeth and she guessed by the blood that he had hurt his lungs. He was completely out of combat. Cosima had to stand alone against the three of them until Eloisa arrived.