30. This Is It

“Set spells are risk-free,” I saw my father’s eyes narrow slightly at that, so I hurried to continue, “or to put it more correctly, set spells are those in which the risk, if any, is known. On the other hand, improvised spells can give the desired result, but the risk is unknown; they are to only be used if there’s no other way.”

Reciting such a basic rule, as if I was a grade schooler, was not my idea of testing the results of my special “witchcraft lessons”. Set spells were, for the most part, old, written in Latin, and proved to be efficient. Every witch knew that much. I sometimes wondered if this oral test wasn’t some kind of late punishment for my blowing-up-a-tree episode. With the ten days I had taken off school, I was able to learn a bunch of set spells other than the rudimentary ones. And most importantly, I was able to fully commit to my training.

Controlling my newly found ability was no easy feat but I