“Magic users are ranked on a scale from 1 to 5. Ostensibly, the lower the level, the weaker the magic user. To most, the scale merely indicates skill and potential. Fives are rare and incredibly sought after in the industry. Ranking also serves a second purpose, however – ones are considered generally low risk, while anyone four and above is considered potentially dangerous.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

There were things in life that were impossible. That fact was a lesson hard-earned by most. And whatever Silver’s parents had told her growing up about being whatever she pleased one day, however much hard work had gotten her good grades in school, however easy it would be for her to tank her life with a bad decision any given moment of the day…she had not been able to save her family from the fire. That had been impossible.

And she could not make people go flying with her mind. That was also impossible.

“I kicked him.” Silver stared at herself in the mirror, the water dripping into her eyes from her wet bangs. “He dropped the knife, and…” It magically burst into flame. There was no way around it. No matter how hard she might try to convince herself that she was wrong… she was not wrong.

And what did that mean for her? Compared to that night not so long ago, when she had stared at herself in the mirror and looked for some evidence of the car accident that had begun the downward spiral of her life, she had been a normal person completely unaware of what was about to happen to her. Today, there was no difference. The hazel green eyes that stared back at her were the same.

But the world had irreparably changed.

“I stopped that thing from killing me that night. And it came back for me, maybe for us.” Suddenly, the world felt so bitterly huge, and she was utterly alone in it. There was a gulf between her now and the life she had known two days ago. “It came for us, and I hardly even questioned that it breathed fire, but holy goodness it breathed fire. And I was saved by a wolf that possibly spoke to me. I saw that book…” Her voice cracked.

Whatever she had done to Bek, she had felt it for the first time. Heat in her bones, moving through her arms, her hands, her chest.

A knock sounded at her door, and she hurriedly finished drying her hair. When she opened the door, it was to find Bek outside.

“That was twenty minutes.”

“So sue me,” she said before realizing she should probably get used to being more polite with her coworkers. If the MASO fired her now, she would have no way of learning how to user her newfound abilities to chase down the demon who had come after her. “I mean, sorry about that.” He looked mildly perplexed for an instant, seemed to realize what her train of thought must have been, and flashed a half-smile.

“Ryan will have the results of your test soon, so I’ll explain what we’re expecting while we eat.”

“I’m just wondering what you’re going to call it at this point,” Silver stated factually, following him into the elevator and watching carefully as he selected the fifth floor.

“What do you mean?”

“Psychic powers? Magic? Mutants? There are a lot of options.” He watched her for a moment, as they sped downwards.

“You’re taking this well, all of a sudden,” he noted.

“I don’t have much choice. I felt whatever it is, and I saw the evidence of it. Not to mention that demon that destroyed my house.”

“Well then,” Bek lead her out of the elevator and this time to the right, towards what appeared to be a food court, “We’ll call it magic.”

Within minutes, they had food – the first real food Silver had eaten in days. But she was too busy listening to him to pay much attention to what she had to eat. He was explaining, with an absolutely straight face, a world the likes she had never imagined, and somehow he managed to make it incredibly boring.

Apparently, magic users were required to register with the government, through the MASO, upon discovering their powers. Then, they would undergo a test like the one she had undergone today, usually around their eighteenth birthday. In that sense, at least, she was not late, but he quickly dispelled any sense she had that people waited till adulthood to realize they had magical abilities. Most discovered it as children, even toddlers. They received a minimum training requirement, a few written exams – he promised she would see one soon enough – and possibly a practical before their ranking exam, if their abilities warranted it.

“We oversee the safety of the population in general,” he explained as she shoveled food into her face, “many of whom have no magical abilities. It is imperative that people learn the scope of their power, and the danger it could pose to others, as well as the ethical limits of what they should do. Primarily, we enforce the law that magic remains a closely-guarded secret.”

“I think people would catch on pretty quick if someone ran around lighting things on fire with their mind,” Silver observed. Bek nodded as if this were a reasonable observation.

“Yes they would. Luckily, that is a rare talent. Since you segued nicely for me, let’s talk about magic a little more technically.”

And so he did. As it turned out, the MASO had a nice way of categorizing and ranking magic users, as government agencies tended to have. After their baseline test, most magic users went through a series of more rigorous, directed exams that took advantage of their greater magical control, as well as a blood test that he claimed they had done for her on a sample provided by the hospital. They were then ranked on a scale of one to five in two categories: capacity and control. Capacity equated to the ability to continuously use magic before reaching exhaustion, and control the ability to actually make magic do what they wanted. Their overall rank was based on an average of those two values, which were trainable with time…though as Bek firmly stated, it was unlikely an individual with a level one capacity for magic would ever get higher than a two or three.

Finally, he described class.

“Every single one of us is unique,” Bek noted, “and our magic has a signature, like a fingerprint – it isn’t the same for any two people. We see that in how it manifests. Most people find it simplest to use magic the way they would use their physical strength, and so they move, tip, or throw things with magic. More sophisticated users can learn to augment their own abilities, within reason, strengthening their sight or running speed. Now, I’m not saying these people will be like movie superheroes,” he clarified, possibly seeing the disbelief in her expression, “just a little faster, a little stronger than the average person. They could probably win a barfight a little more easily, or jump a few feet higher.”

“Thus, the moat,” she interrupted.

He nodded. “Thus, the moat. Now, say you plan to do something physical with your magic. For example, say you want to move this salt shaker,” he pointed at a salt shaker across the table, and it shot into his hand, “You could use the air to push it, gravity to pull it, a controlled explosion to shift it. Which one comes most naturally to each of us defines our class. Some people have a natural talent for things like,” he gestured at her, “pyromancy, which I suspect you have. They might be able to use psychometry on items, or lean towards manipulating water or solids into shapes, or even teleportation. Some of these things can be learned, over time or with the right teacher, and some people are born with, because using magic in any of these ways really requires a level of understanding that can’t be taught. The one exception is healing, which is primarily schooled into someone. Doctors make excellent healers, and most other people are lousy at it.”

Silver stared at him. “So, everyone has a rank and a class?”

“Everyone has a rank. Class is a concept we use to discuss our magic, nothing more.”

“So then,” Silver swallowed a quick sip of water to keep her voice from cracking, “what exactly…is magic?”

“Are we going to actually eat?” Bek asked, gesturing at his steaming bowl of noodles, and then at hers, which was half-finished. Silver took a few forced bites, relishing the warmth and flavor.

“We have an entire research department trying to answer your question,” Bek continued after he had taken a few bites of his own dish. “Magic is like energy, but it most certainly is not energy. Magic is something intrinsic to the world, present in the atmosphere, and yet we can and do produce it within the human body. The most likely explanation might be that magic is our will working in the world through some unknown medium.”

He pulled something out of his back pocket, setting it on the table between them. After a second, she realized that it was a deck of playing cards in a clear case. He opened it, sliding the top card free and lifting it so that she clearly saw the ace of spades. Very carefully, he replaced the card on the top of the deck.

“I want to give you a tangible example, because this usually helps people the most when they’re first learning how to control their magic. Logic would suggest that obviously, if I flip this card over again, it will still be the card you just saw,” he tapped the back of the card, watching her, “Object permanence is a concept that defines our existence, and we learn it at a very young age. We have to. Otherwise, children would grow up believing that dropping a ball in a box causes the ball to cease existing. Paradoxically, there’s a possibility that even as we learn the laws of our physical world, we create and enforce them. In other words, what if this card will remain the card you saw in some part because it is that card, and in some part because that is the card you’re expecting to see? I assume you’ve heard the expression, ‘if a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear, does it make a sound?’ I wish I could tell you that clearly it does. In fact, I think there’s no way to be sure.”

He reached down and picked the card up slowly, flipping it towards her. It was the three of hearts. Silver shook her head, and he flipped over the deck, spreading it neatly across the desk. There was no ace of spades.

“No way. I’ve seen this trick a thousand times,” Silver scoffed. Bek smiled slightly, scooping up the deck and then spreading it wide again.

Every single card had become the three of hearts.

“If there is something that is not known, magic can change it, and what is known is something you decide,” he said softly.

They finished their meal in peace, while Silver mulled over everything he had said. Somehow, placing a ranking on it made magic more acceptable. Even so, she expected to pinch herself and wake up any second. It might even be preferable.

“Here she is!” Silver jumped, swiveling in her chair to stare at the fit, dark-haired man who approached them across the cafeteria floor. He wore the same black workout gear she had found in her closet, though looser and clearly sized for someone slightly taller than she was. There was an enormous bowl of soup and noodles balanced on a tray in front of him, and he joined them as if they were old friends. Maybe Bek and he were. Silver glanced between them questioningly.

“Most likely, Bek has already introduced me. Ryan Cohen. I have your results, Ms. Alurian,” he said, extending a hand in greeting after he set down his tray. She took it, and he smiled. “We’ll be working together quite a lot. I need to get you to a point where you can show him up,” he pointed at Bek, and she could tell he was serious.

“O-okay,” she said.

“So?” Bek asked pointedly. Ryan gave him a serious nod, sobering.

“I’m placing her at a level 2 for capacity, 1 for control. I inspected the area around where you used your magic,” he was much more serious now, “and I can definitively promise that fire is your element. As I’m sure Bek explained, though, that is not a restriction, just your lean as we call it. It’s a bit rare to know someone’s preferences right out the gate like that; it means I can angle our sessions in the right direction from the start. If you continue to progress in that direction, we might decide your class really is pyromancy.”

“A rank 1,” Bek cast Silver a narrow-eyed glance, so she could not quite tell if he was teasing when he said, “not everyone gets the chance to start at the bottom.”

Ryan looked from Bek to her before saying, “He’s terrible with newbies, Silver. Just terrible. Usually, we don’t let anyone near Trent here for the first 6 months of their tenure.”

Bek retorted sharply to this, but she did not think he was angry. If Ryan had not started down some new path of conversation, Silver would have asked what Bek’s class and rank were. Instead, she listened intently to their banter. Somehow, the rest of their meal ended up being more companionable than she had expected, right up until Ryan told her he would see her in the morning, and Bek excused himself to take care of some other work he had presumably been working on when he came to retrieve her for the evening.

She found the tray return herself, ogled the MASO’s fantastic collection of chocolate cake, and then made her way back to her bedroom. It was quiet in the evenings. Most likely, that was something she would get used to, after a while. Tonight, however, it weighed on her. The hallways were empty, the elevator silent but for the whir of its engines. There was no one to greet her when she stripped off her workout clothes and collapsed into bed. No one asked her about her day. No one knew what she had gone through in the past twenty-four hours, nor did they care.

As she lay there, she was almost glad Ryan and Bek had worn her out. If not, she would not have slept so quickly or so soundly. And for once she was not sure which she would prefer…the black embrace of deep sleep, or to see her family and forget for a while that they were gone.