“Anything?” Ryder asked, turning to look at Ristan.
“No, I have a small group out scouting, but I can see nothing. How's the magic training going?”
“She's unable to pull it out,” Ryder said softly as I continued to try.
“So, she isn’t progressing?” Ristan asked.
“No, she isn’t trying hard enough. She’s still using the magic she was taught at the Guild. She should be able to do it naturally, with just a thought. Right now, she isn’t tapping into anything besides my patience.”
“Oh I wouldn't say that.” Ristan grinned widely. “She's tapping you nightly.”
“Ristan, figure out who is trying to kill her. I want to know who it is by tomorrow night.”
“You got it. But, Ryder, whoever it is; he's doing a damn good job hiding from us. There's no scent to follow, or a single trace of him.”
I turned my back on them, shutting them out as I tried to pull out more magic. It was hopeless. I'd been using magic since I could remember, and nothing was coming but the magic I’d always used. But that wasn’t the magic I needed. Casting came easily, but the only thing coming was what I couldn’t, and shouldn’t use. Not without the help of a coven anyway. Dark Magic could kill, or do damage to the caster if not leveled and kept balanced by a full coven.
“Ever consider that she's already tapped into her Fae magic and that maybe, just maybe, she's been using it all along?” Ristan said to Ryder, making me spin on them.
“How is that possible if I've been blocked by the brand on my neck? Wouldn't you have felt the magic?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes.
“If she's been using it this entire time, we'd have felt it,” Ryder agreed, even though he'd tilted his head, which he did when he was thinking. “Unless the actual magic is being shielded. She has always smelled of wild magic, even if she wasn’t using it.”
“How old were you when you first used magic, Syn?” Ristan asked softly.
“Three was my first memory of using it,” I answered him smoothly.
“She can't lie,” Ristan said, causing me to lift an eyebrow in confusion.
“Why would I? I have nothing to gain by lying.”
“You’re also fully Fae now, Synthia. You couldn't lie if your life depended on it,” Ristan mused with a cocky grin on his lips.
“Point?”
“Age three is extremely young for a Witch to start casting. What else could you do at three, Syn?” Ryder asked as he pushed from the wall and let his arms drop to his sides. I watched the muscles in his abdomen as they tightened with his movements. He'd come shirtless today for the lesson, and I hadn't complained one bit until now.
“Simple things; I could control the heat of my bathwater, food that I didn't like I could change into something simple like fries, and clothes—shit!” I stopped cold and blinked. I'd changed my clothes, and even my mother’s on occasion with a simple thought—but I hadn’t used spells then. I realized that I had begun believing in the power of the spells, instead of the power inside of me when I had moved to the Guild.
“You could change clothes,” Ryder said, tilting his head with a devastating grin. “This whole time you have been struggling to materialize cotton, and you could do it at three. That’s an impossible feat for any but a select few Fae at that age.”
“You thinking, what I'm thinking, Ryder?” Ristan asked from where he'd stayed leaning against the wall.
“That Syn is the real Light Princess, whose mother must have had an affair with one of the princes of the Blood Fae, giving us a little Syn?” Ryder smiled wickedly as he watched me closely.
“I'm not the Light Heir. You said I was Blood Fae.”
“She's about the right age, and it would account for why she would have known Adam, and bound him as a familiar at such a young age,” Ristan supplied. “Blood Fae had a compact with the Light, as well as the Dark, twenty one years ago. They could have easily met at the Samhain feast, and typically all three castes would have been present.”
I felt as if I was drowning and couldn't breach the surface of the water. It was horrifying to even consider it, since the Light Fae were the most obnoxious of any caste, with their air of superiority.
“The glamour you cast when we first met, Syn. How long could you have worn it?” Ryder asked quietly.
“Not long, I guess, it would have drained my magic,” I replied as I absently fisted my hands at my sides where they had started to shake. It was one thing to know I had family out there, and another to actually have someone figuring it out in front of you.