“You didn’t have to bring us back up here,” said Kol, “and even if you did, you could’ve told us you were about to do it. Look at poor Kelser. The kid’s lost all the blood in his face. His hair might lose its color at this rate!”

I looked at Kelser. Kol was right that he looked pale and nervous, and absolutely refused to look down, but I thought he was faring better than Kol and Taoc had done their first time around. “It’s fine,” I said as I put a hand on Kelser’s shoulder. “He knows enough magic to survive the fall even if I dispelled the magic keeping us all up here.” For some reason, as I looked over at Kol and Taoc, I saw that their eyes were wide open and their faces were a lot less calm than they had been a moment ago. Did I say something wrong? Ah well.

“You said…”

“Huh? What are you saying, Kelser? Speak up,” I said.

Kelser closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He stood perfectly still as he faced me, with his feet hanging loose into the clouds. The others were at least pretending like the clouds were solid and they could walk on them, but Kelser seemed to prefer acknowledging the fact the clouds were not substantial. “You said we didn’t have clear heads down on the ground.” He frowned with his eyes still closed. “But my mind feels a lot less clear right now.”

“Oh, you won’t be able to tell,” I said as I conjured up some chairs and a table in the clouds. The ‘furniture’ was also made of wispy clouds, and when I went over to sit in one of the chairs, I was actually being held up by my own magic. I was multitasking by using this meeting as a chance to apply my magic in different ways. “You see, the Immortal of Desire, who is also called the Simurgh, has been casting a spell on all of you to manipulate your emotions. Oh, come sit down will you? And open your eyes already Kelser. I haven’t gone crazy after a few days in the mountains, you know?”

Kelser slowly opened his eyes. “It was more than a few years.”

Kol hesitated but eventually walked over to the wispy cloud seat in front of her. Taoc didn’t hesitate as much, probably because she hovered over the chair anyway. Kelser was the last to one to ‘sit’ on the chairs, at which point I leaned forward with my elbows on the cloud table.

“Apologies, once again, for bringing you all up here so suddenly. After determining that we were being manipulated, I knew I had to figure out a way to escape the spell. But although I have figured out a way to resist the spell myself, I can’t help others avoid its effects without first teaching them a few tricks,” I said.

“Wait, you’re going too fast for me,” said Kol, “like Kelser said, I don’t feel any different up here. I mean, my head feels a little lighter but I think that’s because the air is pretty thin here.”

“No, I’m using magic to make sure you don’t have any trouble breathing,” I said.

“Well, then I can’t feel anything,” said Kol. “Are you sure we were being manipulated?”

I nodded. “It was a subtle form of manipulation, most of the time. It wasn’t mind control, which seems to be the Immortal of Evil’s specialty, but a kind of emotional manipulation. Things like intensifying or subduing emotions. Making you feel angry at the tiniest of things. Or planting a little seed of paranoia at night. Really, if somebody hadn’t told me about it, I don’t think I would’ve noticed it either. I can’t even tell how long I’d been under the spell.”

“They cast the spell on you too?” said Kelser, a surprised look on his face.

“What? I’m not special. Why couldn’t somebody have cast a spell on me?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Kelser, after a brief pause. “Somehow, I never thought you of all people could be put under a spell like that.”

“I agree,” said Kol, “you walked right through the spell isolating my capital city. I think most of us thought the Immortals’ spells don’t work on you.”

I tapped the cloud table with my fingers. There was no sound. “I have been thinking about that as well. I am still not sure how that came to be. I have some guesses, but nothing conclusive.” I leaned back in the fake chair. “But now that I have created a spell that lets me resist emotional manipulation magic, I want to help you three resist it too.”

“You said you needed to teach us some tricks to resist it,” said Kelser. “Does that mean you won’t teach us the spell?”

I looked at Kol and Taoc, who had gotten excited when they thought I’d be teaching them spells. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I can teach you this spell. It’s part of a new type of magic that I’m working on right now. I’ll share it with you guys once I have it all figured out. Isn’t much point in explaining it when I don’t completely understand it myself.”

“Maybe we can help,” said Kelser. “You don’t have to try to figure it out on your own. Tell me what you’re thinking and maybe if we put our heads together, we can come up with something.”

I looked at the redheaded human for a while. He was earnest and hardworking. If I shared some of my ideas about my new magic with him, I was sure his feedback and insight would be invaluable. But still. “I can’t. Not yet.” I looked up at the wide open sky. “But I can tell you why I think this place, high up above the clouds, lets you guys resist the emotion manipulation magic.”

“Being here helps us resist the magic?” repeated Kol. “That makes it sound like we are still under the spell.”

“Because you are,” I said.

“But we don’t feel any different,” said Taoc.

“We’ve been over this. You can’t tell if your emotions are your own or if you are being manipulated by the magic,” I said. “And I believe the reason you are able to resist it up here is because this place is kind of like a border, no, it would be more accurate to call it the front line on a battlefield.”

“A battlefield?” said Kol as she looked around. “Seems a little peaceful for a battlefield, doesn’t it?”

“That’s because it isn’t a battle between physical beings,” I said. “I should start from the beginning. I can’t talk about all of it, but I’ll give you a quick summary of the important stuff. See, my magic, Kol, the kind of magic that Kelser and I have been using, is different from the magic I taught you at first.”

“Yeah, you told me that when you were teaching me,” said Kol. “And Senator.” She faced Taoc. “You don’t have to make that face. It isn’t funny.”

“My apologies,” said Taoc, still smiling, “but the fact the great elf did not teach you his real magic is amusing to me.”

“Well, at least he taught me something,” said Kol.

“The great elf has taught us many things! There was no time to learn his magic, or else I am sure he would have shared his secrets with us, his most loyal and devoted followers,” said Taoc.

“Taoc,” I said, rubbing my temple.

“Yes, great elf!” said Taoc.

“I thought I told you to call me Cas,” I said.

“But, I,” said Taoc.

“No buts. If you want to listen to the rest of what I’m about to say, you’re going to have to start calling me by my name. I said we were going to be the first party of heroes in this world, didn’t I? It wouldn’t make sense if we were so distant from each other that we had to use titles, right?” I said.

Taoc bit her lips. She looked at me, then Kelser, and finally Kol, before finally dropping her eyes to the cloud floor. “Understood, great Cas.”

“Just Cas,” I said.

She flinched. “Okay! Fine, whatever you say.”

“You didn’t say it,” said Kelser. He seemed to be enjoying this scene.

“Fine! Cas! There, are all of you happy?” she said.

I clapped my hands. “See? It wasn’t hard, was it? Anyway, where were we? Right, my magic. You’ll wanna listen to this too, Taoc. We don’t have enough time for me to teach you magic while I’m up here, but you need to understand a couple of things before I explain the rest of the story and plan.” I leaned forward. “The first and most important thing to understand, is that my old magic, the kind that Kelser uses, assumes that the basis of magic in this world is knowledge and wisdom.”