Jacinth came to Theo in the afternoon, asking her to go watch Xander for a while. “He’s at Damon’s place right now,” she said. “I’ll come for him soon, but right now I’m going hunting.”
“Not a problem,” Theo agreed and headed for Damon’s as Jacinth left.
She found Xander just outside Damon’s shabby shelter.
“So where do you keep your wand?” Xander asked, watching as Damon threw together a potion over a violent fire.
“Wands,” Damon replied huskily, “are nothing but a poor misunderstanding of wizardry. Swishing a stick around and speaking nonsense has no relation to magic. Magic is found in physical objects, not actions.”
“Oh.” Xander sounded disappointed. “Then where are the magical objects?”
Damon continued on with his busy work, occasionally peering into the cauldron. “Everywhere,” he answered, preoccupied. “Everything living contains magic.”
Xander laughed, disbelieving. “So you’re saying I have magic inside of me?”
“Many magics. You’d be dead without most of them.”
“Damon,” Theo stepped in, suspicious. “What lies are you filling this boy’s ears with?”
“They are not lies,” Damon responded. “They are honest answers to his questions.”
“Wait River, let me listen,” Xander urged. Then he asked Damon, “So if I were dead, then what?”
“The magic would leave your body as you deteriorated, beginning the Cycle of Magic anew,” Damon said, dropping a handful of berries into the pot.
“The Cycle of Magic!” Xander was clearly entertained. “What’s that?”
Damon stopped to face him, looking fatigued as always. “That’s a question with a big answer,” he warned, but Xander was not deterred.
“The purest form of magic,” Damon began with a sigh, “is found wherever life is found. It has its ways of entering you and me, by air or by water. It may help you to think of magic as paint. Pure magic starts out colorless, but living things add color to it, making different kinds of magics.”
Damon paused, looking around for something as he muttered. Then, spotting the beetle on his garments, he brushed it into the cauldron murmuring, “That will do.”
“So, ‘different kinds of magic…’” Xander prompted him, watching as the beetle struggled to escape the boiling deathtrap.
“Yes, yes,” Damon chided. “With every kind of living thing comes a different kind of magic. Now, a kind of magic can have a beneficial, harmful, or neutral effect on you, should you come into contact with it. For example, many things are known as ‘poisonous’ to people because the magics inside those things have harmful effects on them. And, when a person is ‘poisoned’, they need something with magic that will heal them. Now, if someone not ‘poisoned’ ate the same thing that would benefit a ‘poisoned’ person, the effect would be, in most cases, neutral.”
Xander looked dizzy with information.
“Also, a kind of magic will often have different effects on different living things.” Damon held up a nut. “See, the kind of magic inside this would make me ill if I ate it. But the animals that eat it for food are benefitted by it.”
“Oh,” Xander said. He seemed to be losing interest, but Damon couldn’t be stopped now.
“A potion,” Damon gestured to his cauldron, “is made up of many different types of magics mixed together to create a new type of magic. Yet, in order for most potions to be successful they require one thing. That one thing is dragon fire. Most magics will not fuse unless heated by dragon fire.”
Damon used two hands on a sturdy wooden spoon to stir his thick concoction. Large bubbles slowly rose to the surface, each making a deep blurp sound as they popped. Damon looked at Xander as though expecting a question from him, but Xander just sat, scratching drawings into the dirt.
“For some reason regular fire won’t do the trick,” Damon told him. “Only dragon fire will.”
“Huh,” Xander responded, not bothering to look up.
“How is it that you know all this, Damon?” Theo inquired.
Damon looked at her from the corner of his eye. “I can see magic,” he replied.
Theo laughed, but Damon’s face remained serious.
I don’t believe it, Theo thought. Being able to see magic! What a ridiculous notion.
Chapter 17