The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 22

When we emerged from between the shelves, Thalia was talking animatedly to a thoughtful looking Jaylon, her hands waving all over the place. Tyson and Nicole appeared to be in some sort of an argument and Danielle was looking as happy as I'd seen her, chatting away with the twins, while Noah and Andrew were nowhere in sight. When Jaylon saw me, he hurried over and placed his hands firmly on my shoulders.

"What are you doing?" I asked, referring to his slightly odd behaviour as he just kept his hands there, staring intently but not saying anything.

"He's seeing if you've still got your matter changed," Thalia said softly from behind him. I glanced at her, then back at him, frowning in confusion.

"What do you mean my matter changed?" I asked, pushing his hands aside and walking over to the ong table to return the blue candle I had used.

"She didn't even realize she was doing it." I heard Jaylon say to Thalia, his tone one of awe and disbelief.

"See me do what?" I demanded, a little annoyed now. Did they really have to be so mysterious about whatever was going on? They exchanged a look, and Jaylon nodded.

"Watch," he said, summoning a thick book from the able and holding it in one hand. He closed his eyes, focusing, and my brows furrowed together. I had never once seen Jaylon have to gather his focus before performing magic. He was just so practised at it that he could do it right away.

Jaylon lifted his left hand towards his right which was holding the book and paused, to do what. I don't know. And then he delved his hand right through the book as if there was a hole in the centre the perfect size for his hand.

I got it then, what they were trying to say. Thalia must have seen when I somehow went straight through that shelf in the library. But how? I had become aware that she wasn't following me anymore long before that had happened.Did that mean I had been doing it more than that time and just never even noticed I was running straight through an extremely solid bookshelf somehow.

"This," Jaylon said, retracting his hand slowly and placing the book down. "Took me years to master. It's one of the most difficult magics out there, changing your matter, but it can come in very handy."

"It can also go very wrong," Thalia added.

"I got my hand stuck in a wall once and I was panicking too much to focus on changing my matter back so I could pull it out," Jaylon smiled and shook his head. "I ended up smashing through the wall, breaking my hand in the process."

"But..." I trailed off, not sure what to say. "What are you saying?"

"You achieved changing your whole body so that you could go straight through bookshelf after bookshelf," Jaylon said, his tone becoming eager. "You must be a lot more powerful than we thought."

"But more power comes with more risk," Thalia said. "You must continue your training, before you lose control. What you did before? You obviously weren't in control, you didn't even know it was happening."

But what about finding the bloedzoeker?" I asked. "What about finding all the rest of the members of the twelve families?"

"We'll still do that, of course," Jaylon said. "It's just that we can't put your training on hold to go do it."

"So I can train with you when we're not looking for them."

"We were talking about it before," Thalia said in that soft, sweet voice of hers. "We think it would be best if one of us, probably me, stayed here with you and everyone else to train, and Jaylon goes."

"Just you?" I asked, turning on Jaylon. "No! You wouldn't even have any clue where any of them were if it weren't for me. You wouldn't have found out about the bloedzoeker, and... and...." I struggled to think of a third point for my argument. "You can't even drive!"