I don't have any money when the pizza guy finally arrives, but Felix left his wallet behind when he stormed out.

I feel kind of guilty as I hand over his credit card, but the pizza is already made and the guy went through all the trouble of getting it here, and it seems more messed up to just not answer the door and hope he goes away.

Besides, I'm starving.

I devour most of it, and then sit on the bed and stare the the door Felix disappeared through, trying to figure out what to do now.

I can't just leave. I don't have any money of my own, so I'm relying on Felix to buy the plane tickets back to the US.

I'm still pissed that he dragged me all the way out here based on a handful of guesses, and I'm pissed at myself for not making him tell me his whole plan before I let him so it. I had been so desperate for a way out, so focused on the walls closing in all around me, that it had been easier just to let him take over. I put my future entirely in his hands because it was easier to let someone else make these impossible decisions for me, and in the end, all it did was get me in deeper trouble.

I'm embarrassed for shouting at him the way I did, for going off like that. I feel bad about that—his plan may be stupid, but he really seems to think it will work. I'm still not Felix's biggest fan, I doubt I ever will be, but now that I've been forced to spend the last couple of days in his company, I have to admit he's not quite as much of an asshole as I thought he was.

He's still a bit of an asshole, though. I guess the difference is that he's not trying to be an asshole, that's just his natural personality.

Still. There's nothing I can do about either my guilt or my irritation while he's gone, so there's no point in dwelling on the expression on his face as he pushed past me to leave. All I'm doing it working myself up, and I haven't used any magic in nearly 24 hours. I can feel it starting to build up, and I know I have to either get a handle on my emotions, or go work some of this magic off.

I settle on the latter, and leave the hotel room.

I go out into the garden in the back of the building. Despite it being so late in November, the weather is surprisingly nice, and it's almost warm enough when standing in direct sunlight to shed my coat. But I don't want to be seen, so I find a shady spot under a huge oak tree, using the thick trunk to shield me from view of the hotel.

I'm anxious and twitchy, still worked up from the fight with Felix, and I know if I try a small spell, I'll end up pouring way too much power into it and cause some bizarre, probably dangerous magical backlash. I decide to go for a big spell instead, something that needs a large amount of energy, but can be done quickly, so I won't need to keep focused for too long and risk losing control halfway through.

I pull out my wand, and point it at one of the low hanging tree boughs, danging almost right in front of my face. It's mostly bare, though a few grey-brown leaves are still clinging half-heartedly to it. They tremble dangerously in the light breeze, just one stiff gust of wind from being blown away.

I level my wand at those leaves, its tip is almost touching them, and I stare at them so hard that everything in the periphery of my vision fades to black. Those four or five leaves become my entire world, my whole universe. I see them as they are, and in my mind's eye, I see them as they were only a few months ago—bright and green and vibrant and full of life.

“Vita,” I say, and I feel my magic swell up to the surface of my skin, most of it pouring out of my pores with no direction like an overflowing cup; but a little follows the path I'm willing it to, down my arm and through my hand and into my wand, where it's tightened and restricted and tuned to a fine point like a laser beam. The magic touches the leaves and they quiver, hard enough that I'm worried they might fall off the branch. I double down, focusing harder on the power of life and the smell of summer and the color green.

A blush of green begins to tinge the edges of the greyish leaves, but it's so gradual that I can't be sure I'm really seeing it. Barely a trickle of magic is making it through my wand, the rest is just leaking out of me, formless and weak. I'm afraid to try to force more through the wand; this is the only spare I have with me, and if it blows I've got nothing left.

Life, green, grow, I chant to myself. Vita, vita, vita! The leaves grow glossy, the brown fading as green spreads further and further, but then I feel the wood handle of my wand beginning to grow hot in my hand. I'm pushing it too hard, and the wand can only take in so much of what I'm trying to force into it. I pull back, and the wand begins to cool. As it does, the color fades from the leaves.

A hand grabs me by the shoulder and I almost jump out of my skin.

I whirl around to see Felix standing there.

“Keep going,” he says. “Don't stop.”

“I can't,” I say. “My wand can't take it.”

Felix reaches out and grabs the wand out of my hand, shoving into the back pocket of his jeans. “Then don't use the wand.” He takes his hand from my shoulder and takes me by the wrist instead, pulling me after him until he's placed my hand against the trunk of the oak tree. “Keep going,” he says again.

I stare at him, but he only glares back.

“Keep going.”

I do. I look up now, up into the branches overhead at the few remaining leaves, and let my magic bubble back up to the surface.

“Vita.” But it's the same problem as before, the magic is just spilling out of me without direction, and even though it's full of intent, I can't direct enough of it into the tree to make an effect.

Felix is standing so close to me that I can feel him shudder. I turn to look at him, and his eyes are closed. He almost looks like he's in pain.

“What's wrong?” I ask, and I try to pull my hand away from the tree.

He tightens his grip on my wrist and keeps me from breaking contact with the oak. He shakes his head without opening his eyes, his shoulders tense and his jaw clenched. “A lot of magic,” he says, barely opening his mouth, like he's going to be sick or something.

“I'll stop,” I say, suddenly worried, and I start to suppress the flow, but his eyes fly open.

“No, keep going!” he demands. “Look at your hand.”

I hesitate.

“Look!”

I do, staring at it against the grey tree trunk, Felix's hand tight around my wrist.

“Focus right there, right where you're touching. Don't think about the individual leaves, think about the point of contact and what you're feeling under your hand. Put your magic there. All of it, right where you're touching.”

I close my eyes, and focus on the texture of the rough bark under my palm and fingertips. Instead of focusing on pushing my magic through and out of my arm, instead I focus on that point on contact. Vita, I think, and my mind is only full of touch, of the tree against my hand.

My magic rushes out of me, and without my brain getting in the way for once, it rushes right to where all of my attention is at that moment, right down my arm and through my hand and into the tree.

It's like when I lose control, when I'm so full of magic that it explodes out of me at some random passing thought, only this time it's doing what I want.

I hear Felix gasp in surprise, and suddenly my thoughts turn to him, to the sensation of his warm fingers around my wrist.

He gasps again, but this time it sounds like a gasp of pain. My eyes fly open and I see him staring at me—but not really at me; I mean, he's looking at me but it's not like he's really seeing me. His eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open, and his whole face is flushed like he has a fever.

I suddenly realize my magic is still flowing, but now it's flowing into him. With my free hand I grab the wrist of his hand that's still gripping me and yank it away, breaking the point of contact that I had been briefly focusing on. The spell is abruptly cut off and Felix takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then his legs buckle.

I catch him before he falls to the ground and help him stand back up.

“Are you okay?” I ask, seriously concerned that I fried his circuits or something.

“I'm... fine,” he croaks.

I'm still holding him by the wrist, and I've got my other hand on his elbow to keep him supported. He's trembling slightly, and I tell him as much.

Felix just shakes his head. “You hit me with that spell,” he explains. “Merlin and Morgana, that was insane. That was...” he trails off, swallows, and starts again. “That was more magic than I've ever felt before. For Circe's sake, is that what you've got running through you all the time?”

“Everyone has that much magic,” I point out.

“Yeah but the rest of us can't access it all at once like that. You have all that at your finger tips all the time?”

I shrug. “I guess. Not all the time, not if I've been using magic regularly. It can build up a lot more than that, though.”

“And you can't control it? No wonder everyone thinks you're some kind of super weapon,” Felix says, staring at me like he's just seen me transform into a werewolf or something.

I pull away, dropping his wrist and elbow.

“I'm not a weapon,” I snap.

“No—I didn't mean—I just...” Felix leans against the tree for support. He's still panting slightly. “I mean... look what you did.”

“You're fine, I didn't kill you or anything,” I say heatedly.

“No, not me,” he shakes his head. “Though I feel like I've been struck by lightening or something. No, look up, you idiot.”

I do, and I see a sea of green swaying in the autumn breeze above our heads. The oak tree is full of leaves now, no longer a fall skeleton but full and vibrant.

“Using that much magic at once would leave a regular magician at the point of collapse. It might even kill them,” Felix says, and when I look back at him, he's still staring at me. Only maybe he isn't looking at me like I've just turned into a werewolf. Maybe he's looking at me like he's just seen something... powerful, and frightening, but not necessarily bad. A hurricane. Or an earthquake. A force of nature.

I shrug. “Well... I'm not a normal magician."

Felix laughs, and it comes out just a little drunken. “No, you're not. Damn. But did you see that? Do you know what you just did?”

“Well, yeah, I'm not blind.”

“You controlled it. Properly controlled it, I mean. You performed that spell perfectly!”

“Not perfectly. I only meant to change a couple of leaves, not the whole damn tree.”

“And that, my friend, is what Merlin's staff is for. Once you have the staff, you'll be able to control how much power you put into the spell. But we've solved your problem with your focus.”

“I don't think we've solved anything,” I retort. “It's just like whenever I do magic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.”

“Your problem is trying to direct it. You're too disconnected from your own body. That's what every regular magician learns, even before they get their first wand. You never had the chance to learn to use your magic like an extension of the rest of your senses. I think that we can work with this, in between searching for the staff.”

“Who said we're still going to be looking for that staff?” I cross my arms over my chest, and it comes out way more petulantly than I meant it to.

“I did,” he replies, as if he has the final word. “We've come all this way, it'd be stupid just to go back now without even looking. Besides, you never let me finish explaining my plan.”

I scoff. “Yeah, I think it ended on something about going to that abbey and what, digging up every grave without getting caught and arrested in the hopes that we'll be able to pry the staff out of Merlin's cold, dead hands? If Merlin is even there at all, which is a pretty damn big if.”

“Well, you're right about the prying from cold dead hands; but we won't have to waste our time digging up all the graves blindly.” Felix looks smug as fuck, incredibly pleased with himself about whatever plan he's concocted. He waits, clearly hoping I'll beg him to reveal his clever plan, and stroke his ego in the process.

I just grunt at him, my arms still crossed, not about to play his little game.

“I think,” he finally says, looking slightly irritated but unable to keep himself from explaining, “that a simple tracking spell can be used to determine Merlin's exact location.”

Okay, I really am surprised by that. I forget to look pissed off and my arms fall to my side. “What? How? You need a part of someone to use a tracking spell on them, their hair or fingernail clippings or whatever. Merlin's been dead for nine hundred years, what could you possibly have to track him with?”

Felix grins this huge, self-satisfied grin, and points to himself. “Me. One of his only living heirs. His blood runs in my veins, his genes in my DNA.”

I laugh. I can't help it. “Yeah, watered down through thirty generations! You're like one-one thousandth Merlin, I don't think a tracking spell is going to do shit.”

“Most magicians can track a person using something of that person's close relatives,” Felix explains, patiently like I'm a little kid who's slower than the rest of the class. “Hair from the parent, skin cells from a sibling. It gets harder to do the further removed the family member is, that's true. I probably couldn't use my hair to perform a tracking spell on my own cousin. But that's most magicians, and you aren't most magicians.”

My mouth drops open. “You want me to do the tracking spell? To use you to find Merlin's moldy old bones?”

“I just felt how much magic you have a few minutes ago, Adam. I'm absolutely convinced that you can do it. You can super-charge the spell enough to find Merlin's grave.”

“And if you're not actually related to him at all and that's all a bunch of wishful thinking on your part?”

Felix shrugs. “Then we either try to think of something else, or we go home. But I don't see why we shouldn't at least try it.”

I try to think of an argument, but can't come up with anything.

It's not that I don't want his plan to work. If we really did find Merlin's staff, and if it really did help me control my magic once and for all... it would change my life forever.

But now that I know Felix's plan is completely conditional on about half a dozen “ifs”, I feel a lot like I'm risking getting my hopes up only to be crushingly disappointed in the very near future. The thought of searching and failing somehow seems worse than just giving up entirely.

I look at Felix, and he's looking at me with the same excitement as he had back in the hotel room. He's so caught up in his own cleverness that I don't think he even remembers the fight we had back there.

I sigh as I run a hand through my hair. It's greasy, and I need a shower. “Okay. Okay, fine. We'll go to that abbey and take a look. But if this doesn't pan out, we're going straight back home.”

“Great,” Felix grins. “Let's go make our plan, we'll head to the Brocéliande forest first thing tomorrow morning.”