The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XV

Lillian was on her way to her second thaumaturgy lab. Amazing to believe so much has happened in the last week, she thought to herself as she stepped into the thaumaturgy building and headed straight for the stairs, lugging her backpack up to the second floor. When she entered the classroom, Amandi subtly shot her a nasty look while attempting to set up a strange-looking apparatus on one of the desks.

Lillian slid into her usual seat next to Brandon, who was staring wearily at the apparatus on top of their desk- a clear plastic sphere with a hole in the top shaped like a circle with two notches on the sides and a smaller ball rolling around inside. "No, I don't know what we're supposed to do with it," he muttered without turning to look at his lab partner.

"Well, Amandi's probably going to go over that in a minute," Lillian replied, fiddling with a pair of orange plastic tweezers on the desk. "Hopefully you can do it, because I still haven't figured out thaumaturgy."

"Hopefully you do soon." He tried to put his hand in the hole but his wrist was too big. "I can't fit my hand in here."

"That's probably the point," Lillian responded. "I think you use the tweezers." She slid them through the hole and attempted to catch the smaller ball, but was unsuccessful. "They're too short."

"That's probably the telekinesis part."

"Why not just levitate the ball out of the thing or just tip it over?"

"I think you get a zero if you tilt the thing, Amandi was saying she'd be watching. Oh, and I already tried that, the ball has a barrier on it."

"So why is this any harder than last week?"

Brandon gave her a stony look. "It's like playing the piano. You need fine motor control to do the hard stuff. You need fine thaumaturgical control, I guess, to do very specific telekinetic stuff like this."

"Oh." Lillian wasn't sure what to say. "That makes sense." She realized that the man who had broken into the DIAO headquarters must have been very skilled at thaumaturgy.

"Look, Lillian, I know you're having trouble with thaumaturgy right now, and it's going to be difficult to work with you. I just-"

Lillian recognized the expression on his face. "Do you want me to write the group report?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I can do that. I just need you to give me a general idea of what to write for the description parts."

"Okay, sounds good. Thank you."

"As you may know," Amandi began her bragging spree, "I have been elected president of UODTC..."

☙❧

After I take my, the voice in Dakota's head said unhelpfully. After I take my what?

"That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out," Dakota replied irritably, in fact trying to figure out what he would teach his Omnis class that afternoon.

Well, she said that the DIAO would leave after she took her. Her pills, her walk, her shower, I don't know.

"I'm trying to figure out a lecture," Dakota said through his teeth. "I can't be late today. You let me be late on Thursday."

You weren't even thinking of a lecture then!

"That's not the point."

After she took her what? Maybe that's not the whole sentence. What would have to do with the DIAO anyway? What stops them from leaving?