Free Mage Catalyst by Christopher George Page B

technique, you must be a fantastic lover.” She smirked back, poking her tongue out at me.
“I don’t get any complaints,” I said. Actually, although I had kissed a few girls, I had never had sex. But Sarah didn’t need to know that. Fortunately for me the bell rang before anyone was able to comment further.
    English class again. Mr Saunders’ monotonous voice filled the room, only broken by the squeaking on the white board. I wasn’t paying attention. Instead, my mind was fixated on what I’d learned in the library. I was sure I could do it now. I definitely couldn’t practice in class. It would be too obvious and unfortunately Saunders would never let me go anywhere. If I asked for a toilet break, he’d probably come looking for me after five minutes.
I’d have to sit through English and wait until my next class. I scanned my timetable, History next. That wasn’t too bad. I could easily get away with ducking out of History class for a few minutes without causing too much disruption.
Because I was so tired from the sleepless nights I actually dropped off to sleep for a moment and Saunders woke me with a question. Strangely he didn’t seem that angry about it. What the hell? I would have thought he would have torn me a new one. He seemed to let it pass and English class drew to its thankful conclusion and we all marched in a line to the class door.
“Devon, a moment please.”
Resigned, I turned and walked back into the room.
    Mr Saunders waited at his desk. “Sit down,” he said.
I did. Great. I was going to get detention for sleeping in his class. This was more like the usual Saunders that we all knew and loved.
“I want to talk to you.” He peered over his glasses at me.
“Yes, sir?”
    “Is... everything okay at home?”
Wow. Saunders actually looked nervous. “Yeah… sure it’s fine,” I stammered. We looked at each other, confused.
“You haven’t been looking well recently.”
“Everything’s fine,” I assured him. “I’ve just been having some trouble sleeping at the moment.”
“Stress with the workload?” he suggested. “We have that essay on Heart of Darkness coming up next week.”
Shit. I hadn’t even started that yet. That was going to cost me.
To my surprise, he gave me another week without even prompting. Something was definitely going on here, but I decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth.
“Get some sleep,” he called as I left the room.
This was unexpected. I wouldn’t have thought Mr Saunders would even notice if I wasn’t feeling well. Sure, I’d fallen asleep and I hadn’t been actively trying to make his class a laughing joke recently – but I can’t have been that out of it. Why was he being so nice? Is it possible that I’d misjudged him?
I caught up to Garry who gave me a questioning look about being called back by Saunders. I ignored it. “I’m going to cut History,” I announced. “I need to finish some homework – I’ll see you at recess.”
I waited a few minutes around the corner before heading towards the toilets. The bathroom I’d selected was a remote one, unlikely to be used during class time. So it was unlikely that I’d be interrupted. I made sure there was no one in the bathroom and quickly locked the door behind me. I turned and looked at myself in the mirror and saw the ‘stranger’s eyes’ taking hold of me as I took a deep breath. I could feel the mana in my body react – almost as if it knew what I was about to do. I turned and placed my bag on the far side of the room. I breathed back out and held my hand in front of me. I flexed my fingers and watched with glee as a tendril of mana surged from my hand and with perfect precision wrapped around my school bag and brought it floating back to me.
An intense wave of euphoria washed over me, one that had nothing to do with endorphins. I grinned to myself as I felt the unfamiliar wave of pleasure as the mana washed over me.
This was the control I sought –