Free The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) by James Fahy Page B

the centre of his forehead. A feeling of extreme cold rippled through his head, like the worst kind of ice headache. It was gone again in seconds.
    “What did you just do?” he asked.
    “I gave you a little knowledge,” she shrugged. “Perhaps your last tutor would have given you a list of books and a few months of hard study, but I really don’t have the patience. There’s no harm in sharing a little.”
    Robin hadn’t known Panthea and Fae could do this. His face hung slack, aghast, as he realised he knew how to cast the cantrip. “You mean … Phorbas … the Tower of Air … all that reading, effort … He could have just … zap?”
    “Yes, but I hear some tutors swear by the merits of hard work. I believe character building is involved, whatever that is. I never had the patience for it,” Calypso said airily. She glanced at Robin still spluttering on the grass. “The effects are only temporary but they should last long enough for you to gain an affinity for the element. Now watch.” She made a vague gesture. “Imagine the currents around your body, their potential parabolae, and form a design best suited to take advantage of them.” Robin stared.
    “Off you go then.” She made shooing gestures with her hands.
    Robin glanced helplessly at Henry, who just shrugged.
    He concentrated on his newly acquired knowledge and focussed every inch of his mana, drawing from his stone more power than he had ever attempted before. The sheer force of will made his spectacle at the lake using Featherbreath feel like nothing at all in comparison.
    Robin was astounded to find ice forming between his bare shoulder blades on his very first attempt, and encouraged by this progress, despite the fact that his mana stone felt so hot it might crack like a boiled egg, he redoubled his efforts, until within minutes, and after only a few shaky and spiky false starts, he had rudimentary wings of ice protruding from his back.
    They were nothing like Calypso’s had been. Those had been a work of art, large and perfectly formed, the glassy wings of a swan. Robin’s on the other hand looked stubby and uneven, something between a bird and a bat, but they shone and were solid, and with a tentative flex of his shoulders, and to his great delight, they beat.
    Henry actually gave him an astonished round of applause.
    “It is likely,” his tutor said. “That to attempt such an advanced cantrip will have irreversible damage on your mana.” She spoke conversationally, as though discussing the weather. “But then you are Fae, not Panthea. I am less familiar with your physiology. You may be fine after all.”
    “I feel fine,” Robin lied, exhilarated. In truth, he felt weak and shaky, but his mastery of this trick had him running on sheer adrenalin. “Watch this.”
    He bent his knees and leapt upwards, beating his newly formed wings of ice as hard as he could. They lifted him from his feet, and with a rush of mana thrumming through his body like liquid fire, he shot into mid-air.
    “Rob!” he heard Henry call in a mixture of alarm and sheer delight.
    Robin thrust himself upwards into the sky. He had never felt so light and powerful. His wings roared behind him, feeling like the most natural thing in the world as the folly and the island fell away beneath him swiftly.
    Upwards and upwards he pushed into the sky, delicious wind roaring across his face, wonderfully cooling on the hot, bright summer’s day. The whole shining expanse of the lake was laid out before and below him.
    Robin span, folding his wings in tight against his body as the landscape whirled giddily, before opening them out again and feeling the warm currents of summer air roll invisibly beneath him.
    This is what magic is for , he thought to himself, as he swooped experimentally, glancing down to see to his surprise that he’d climbed higher than he’d thought. Down on the island, in the broken stone circle of the ruined folly tower, Henry and his tutor stared up at