"Can I be a Wizard instead?" I'm proud of myself for asking.

Kyrbast shakes his head. "You are destined to be the Keeper of the Key, the Reader of the Orb, the Lost Knight. Did I remember all your titles?"

I've heard them before, but never all together, and it makes my head spin. Kyrbast winks like it was a joke, but it's not a joke. They expect me to be worthy of those titles.

"You okay?"

I nod, and then shake my head.

He smiles. "Well, that answered that question."

I shake my head for a second time. I have to add words before I nod again. "I'm not any of those things."

Worthless, stupid, lazy, ungrateful. Auntie's words echo around my brain.

"Where'd you go?" he asks, snapping my attention back to him.

He was talking but I didn't hear what he said. I shake my head. He chuckles. I add words. "Sorry."

He groans. "What I said was...you were born to be a Knight. Knights are courageous, strong of mind and body, selfless and inquisitive."

I'm about to shake my head but I stop myself and study my feet. I don't want to talk about this. I just want to see some magic tricks.

"Your mother was a Knight. Your father was a Tutotor, a leader. You are a Knight."

The mention of my parents snaps my head up. "Did you know them?"

It's his turn to shake his head. A burst of energy makes him jump from the chair and lights up his face in a happy smile. He raises a finger in the air and says, "I know what we can do!"

My energy doesn't match his. I stay in the chair and halfheartedly watch him run around the room gathering items. He moves pretty quick for an old guy.

He runs past me and abruptly halts in front of the bookshelves. He spreads his hands out dramatically and asks in a rush, "Do any of you have a portrait potion?" Then he leaps back as three tomes fall from the high shelves and land with a thud.

I jump to my feet when all three books open and rapidly flip through their pages.

"I wish books on Earth did that."

"They can," Kyrbast says as he casually picks them up and puts them on a nearby counter. He grabs at his hips and then his chest in a motion that suggests he's searching for something. When he doesn't find it in his pockets, he looks around at the various tables. "Oh!" he shouts and then races to a bench by the window to retrieve a wand. He brings it back to his table, waves it around and says, "Tiseek e zar."

All the books, beakers, papers and dust that are piled in front of him fly briskly to another already overstuffed station. It's a wonder that a wobbly stack of books—precariously placed on top of a beaker that's on top of a pile of test tubes—doesn't smash to the ground.

"One of the drawbacks of Wizardry," he says to the air. "You never really clean. Just swoosh! and you've got what you need." He emphasizes his words with a few waves of his wand before he puts it down. Then he looks at me with surprise. "Well, come here. Might as well start now. You'll like this."

I jump out of my seat and rush to his side. I'm going to do a magic trick!

He gathers a few empty beakers and some test tubes from various tables. Each of them has a different colored liquid or powder in them. One test tube in particular smells terrible, so I push it as far away as I can.

Kyrbast reads aloud from the book. I lean in and try to read along, but it's in another language with odd letters. He puts an empty bowl in front of me, then places a graduated cylinder in front of that. Then he hands me a test tube with white liquid in it. "Pour four milliliters."

My fingers are shaking with excitement but with a little patience, I'm able to get the measurement right. He hands me several other powders and liquids. I measure them all and pour them into the bowl.

"Okay, stir that up well." He takes out a small knife. "You're not going to like this part. We need five drops of your blood."

I reflexively jerk back, but after my initial shock wears off, I hold my hand out.

He holds the knife up. "Do you want to do it, or do you want me to?"

I turn my head and close my eyes. "No, you do it."

My entire body clenches when he grabs my hand and cold slices across my finger, followed by heat and then pain. I writhe under the pressure of him squeezing the blood out. I want to open my eyes, but I hate blood, so I wait until he covers my wound with a bandage.

"All done," he announces. I open my eyes, and my stomach flips when I see my blood in the bowl.

I study the bandaged finger. "You don't have magic that will heal this?"

He smiles. "No magic works better than your own body. I have a few salves that may help, but it's only a small cut and it should heal fine on its own."

I'm disappointed. What good is magic if you can't do really important things like heal wounds?

He reads aloud from the book again and stirs the potion. As he reads, white smoke pours from the bowl and billows up to the ceiling. Color penetrates the smoke and, slowly, a woman's face takes shape. She has bright brown eyes and a long angular nose. Her dark blonde wavy hair is falling forward because she's looking down. She's smiling and talking, but no sound is coming out.

"That's my mother," I whisper.

"Yes, you were young when you last saw her. It looks like she's talking to you while you're in your crib."

"What's she saying?" I ask in amazement. This is my mother. I know her. The blood drains from my head, and my hands grow cold. I'm numb from the inside out. I don't remember her. I never knew what she looked like or any story about her life. But here she is, my mother, gazing down upon me. I'm whole, as if a part of me was missing and I never knew it. I stare at her, unblinking, until my eyes burn and the smoke dissipates. I'm losing her all over again.

"Don't worry. We can create another," he says to console me. "I will make you another more permanent one that you can take with you. Those take longer and are a lot more complicated. I thought you would enjoy doing that one yourself."

I have no words. I had a mother. I mean, I always knew I had one, but in the sense that everyone has one. But now I saw in her own eyes that she loved me. My mother loved me.

"Well, I guess that's enough for one day," he says after an awkward cough. "We have a lot to learn, so make sure you rest up tonight." He pulls one of the ribbons hanging on the wall.

We stand in awkward silence for a long time until I say in a shaky voice, "Thank you."

He smiles. "It was my pleasure. You look like your mother."

I've never heard that before. It causes a chill to run through my body. The pressure builds in my nose and my vision blurs. I push down whatever feeling is about to erupt. I won't get emotional here. Instead, I give Kyrbast a wobbly smile and whisper, "I look like my mother."

He's about to say something else when we're interrupted by a loud knock at the door. "Your escort has arrived," he says and walks away to do whatever he was doing when I came in.

I jump down from the doorway. Albína isn't here. Instead, there's a male elf in a military uniform waiting for me.