Just a Tuesday - 3. Tuesday, March 25, 2025 – A Piece of Cake

~The Lawyer~

I was speechless. For ten years, I had struggled with my magic, trying to come to terms with the fact that I would never master it and that it would make me a danger to others. And now... there was hope.

I doubted I would ever be able to shake hands with an unknown mage without gloves, but not feeling the agonizing inner storm as soon as I was near someone with magic would be a start.

The chair in the waiting area wasn't very comfortable, but the memories I had received during the unwanted exchange with Dust weren't exactly pleasant either.

Self-doubt. The constant worry of not being good enough, not being able to do enough, not knowing enough. At the same time, the frustration of being special, of always being singled out.

The question of what he might have seen from me, I preferred to push aside.

I hadn't felt the connection between us break, but I felt it now as it snapped back into place. It was as if he were standing right behind me, nestling against my back, breathing into my hair. It was more than that, closer than that, but I couldn't really describe it, this feeling of tender fingertips on my cheek, only somehow directly in my head...

Through this connection, he could show me things, memories of how to use magic, for example. That would be so much better than complicated descriptions from people who didn't even want to be in the same room with me.

Of course, this went hand in hand with the hope that my magic would calm down in the long run and I would be able to work with it. And if so, could he teach me how to really use it?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him coming closer.

“Dust,” the name slipped out of my mouth before I even knew what I wanted to say, and I hurriedly stood up, “this is... this may be a stupid question because you control a different kind of magic, but...” Once again, I misused my coat as something to hold on to, “would you teach me what you know?”

He looked at me for a moment, thoughtful and serious. “Let's have a bite of cake first, and maybe you should sleep on it, but essentially, I'm available,” he finally replied with a small nod.

I nodded back quickly and kept my mouth shut before I said something embarrassing, because a bunch of overly emotional responses were swirling around in my head. “Thanks,” I said anyway. “I mean, of course I'll let it sink in, but... when an opportunity like this comes along, you have to seize it, right?”

He gave me a crooked smile and a nod, then nodded his head toward the exit.

Following him, I slipped into my coat.

The lady at the reception desk was now a different one, and I nodded politely to her, but she only gave me a critical sideways glance before looking at Dust with outright disapproval.

He nodded to her, waved his fingers in greeting, and purred almost maliciously, “Time to clock out.”

She turned away.

Silently, I followed him out of the MID and into the stairwell, where he nimbly hopped down the steps.

“There are some really good cafés around here,” he finally said when we reached the bottom of the stairs. “You can just leave your car here.”

“Okay...” I nodded when he gave me a glance over his shoulder and closed my coat when he unexpectedly opened a side door to the outside, which I wouldn’t have noticed on my own.

“So,” he began, visibly shivering, “what did they teach you? In theory, at least.”

“Nothing.” I couldn’t help but snort the word out. When he gave me a strange look, I decided to explain the matter in more detail. “After my classmate died, of course they had to investigate what had happened. It was the whole circus with police and counselors and stuff. Someone from the police ‘investigated’ me” — I drew quotation marks in the air — “and thought I had one of those assassin passive talents.”

Dust nodded with a slight frown.

"But then objects broke when I touched them, simply because they were charged with magic, and assassin talents don't do that. The witches from the local coven said I was a magebreaker, but the girl's parents contested that, even though their daughter was supposed to officially join the coven. It was a constant back and forth, and eventually a battlemage from the military came by because the parents had put so much pressure on the police. The guy was pretty sure I was a magebreaker, but that my magic wasn't fully developed yet, and the contact with the girl had triggered some kind of magical premature birth." It was strange how calmly and soberly the words rolled off my tongue, but it helped to know that Dust wasn't one of those who would shower me with more hatred or fear or expressions of pity, but wanted to help.

“Things like that happen, yes,” he said affirmatively. “But intensive early training usually gets it under control.”

“Usually is the key word,” I sighed. “The battlemage wanted to make the first move himself and stopped after exactly two minutes because my magic snapped at him. He said I had to learn to keep the magic inside my body myself, otherwise no one could work with me.”

“Harsh words,” Dust muttered. “How old were you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Actually quite late for a magical preemie. But okay. I guess they threw the theories at you like food at a wild dog out of sheer fear?”

I nodded. Insecurity enveloped me like a second coat.

“And otherwise? Knowledge about the magical part of society?”

“I read a lot about it periodically, hoping I might find something that would help me, but I had to finish school and all that, and long clothes and gloves prevented the worst.”

“Did you contact magebreakers?”

“I tried. But the fees they charge private individuals are inhumane, if they even responded at all.”

Dust made a disgusted sound. “I’m not surprised. Even as an official institution, it’s difficult to get hold of one. But that’s Montana for you.”

“Alaska is certainly even worse off,” I pointed out, and he snorted.

We remained silent until we finally entered a small café. It was bathed in warm autumn colors and decorated in the same style, which I found a little confusing, given that spring was about to arrive, but it created a welcoming, almost cozy atmosphere.

Dust chose a table at the back, next to a window looking out onto a small garden. As we sat down at the small round table, our knees touched, sending an electric shock through my body—which, incidentally, had nothing to do with magic.

A waitress in a pumpkin-orange apron took our order—cappuccino with chocolate cream and a cinnamon roll for Dust, fruit tea and nut cake with maple syrup for me—and then hurried on to a table of elderly ladies at the other end of the room who were chatting cheerfully.

The silence dragged on a little uncomfortably, and so as not to completely change the subject, I asked, “Your grandfather taught you a lot, didn't he?”

Nodding, Dust sat down differently, leaning halfway onto the table. "My magic came to light when I was fifteen, and from then on I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, even though we lived in Ashmill, not here. A cousin of my mom's lives two houses over from my grandfather. She's a witch, and she provided us with many, many curses for me to practice on." A small smile lingered on his lips.

“That sounds nice.” My own smile was sad, but at least I managed one.

He looked at me and his smile faded. "Yes, it was nice to have someone right there who could tell you exactly how things work. Who had decades of practical experience. But it was an incredible amount of hard work. My grandfather had incredibly high standards and expectations. And I certainly share his view that our talent should be used to do good, to help people, but it's damn hard to always have to be a beacon of hope."

That matched the fragments of memories I had seen, and I nodded understandingly. “So many people dream of being different from or special compared to the gray masses, but when you are, it’s usually not great or desirable at all.”

“Right.” He nodded back.

The waitress brought our order, and once again we fell silent. We took a few bites—the cake was great—and sipped our hot drinks.

This time it was Dust who broke the silence: “My uncle told me the Upfields have commissioned a pretty big gardening project. Looks like a tank rolled through half the garden.”

Puzzled, I looked at him, and he grinned back. “The consultant is your uncle?”

“Carl Parker, yes. My mother's older brother.”

Well, I could have figured that out for myself. Mr. Parker was a bear of a man, bald and with a beard to make Santa jealous, but when I thought about it, the resemblance to Quentin was unmistakable. They could probably have passed for father and son without any problem, whereas Quentin and Dust weren't necessarily recognizable as brothers.

But because this was a topic I didn't necessarily want to share my own half of, I refrained from commenting and said instead, “Well, it wasn't a tank, but one or two large trucks.”

“What happened?”

And so I told him about my grandfather's argument with the neighbors, who refused to remove the half-dead tree hanging dangerously over the fence. A storm finally caused the tree to fall on our family villa, where it caused considerable damage. A second storm, mistakes made by the tree disposal company, and the general winter weather made the damage even worse—parts of the roof had to be completely rebuilt, and the small apartment below was uninhabitable for many months. In the meantime, the damage to the roof had been repaired and the renovation of the apartment could begin, and as soon as winter was over, the garden, which had been badly damaged by the heavy equipment, was to be restored. It was almost unnecessary to mention that my grandfather put a lot of legal pressure on the neighbors.

“If the neighborhood dispute results in one curse or another, you know where to find me,” Dust commented amusedly, and I sighed.

“Neighborhood disputes are awful. But at least more and more people are learning, have cameras, and are documenting things.”

“And compared to inheritance disputes?”

“Don’t ask.” I rolled my eyes.

He grunted his agreement into his cup. But before I could make any further comment on the subject, he made an “ugh” sound and slumped a little.

Confused, I paused.

A group of young women was just spilling through the door, giggling and whispering in typical fashion.

I let out a questioning sound and got half an answer to my question at the same moment when one of the women demonstratively turned to us and smiled as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Vivian,” Dust muttered. “First-year nursing student. Head over heels in love with me.”

“And the problem is...? Besides obvious workplace issues or the boss-subordinate dynamic."

“The age...?” he replied in the same cautious, questioning tone.

Social awkwardness here we are. “Uh, that would have been my next point...” I muttered, embarrassed and with warm cheeks. In my defense, I could have argued the distance made it difficult to judge how old the girl – Vivian – really was, but Dust was Quentin’s big brother and Quentin was thirty, so, yeah...

“Sixteen years' difference is a bit much,” Dust said at that moment, seeming to breathe a sigh of relief as the group sat down at the other end of the room, out of sight behind the protruding counter. “I could theoretically be her father.”

“Yes, that... I mean, I had other problems at sixteen,” I replied, still more of an embarrassed mumble.

“I said theoretically.” Dust gave me a sidelong glance. “Admittedly, I was also more preoccupied with figuring out how to tell my parents that I wasn't going to bring a girl home.”

My mouth fell open, then I really understood what he had said, and I closed it again. This time, my whole body felt uncomfortably warm and part of me screamed like a groupie. “Well, now...” I couldn't think of a real answer on the spot. I really hadn't thought about coming out officially at the time; I hadn't been foolish enough to add another item to my already long list of problems.

Vivian and a friend stepped up to the counter and apparently examined the cakes and sweets, but their glances were more than obvious.

Dust sighed.

“If you're hoping I'll take one for the team, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. I'm not playing for that team either.” I thought my verbal packaging was pretty good and risked a glance at Dust with hot cheeks.

He snorted a laugh before grinning broadly, his eyes sparkling. “I like that.” His words were deliberately simple, unobtrusive, but the groupie in me shrieked again and was already decorating the bathroom with scented candles.

I wanted to say something, something casual like “Good, glad that’s settled", or something like that, but the trumpeting of an elephant sounded, fortunately muffled.

With a deep sigh, Dust pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket, gave me an apologetic glance, and swiped the screen. “What can I do for the QFPD on this lovely afternoon?”

Well, now. It's especially difficult not to listen when it's important, but all I heard from the other end was mumbling, probably male.

“Detective,” Dust greeted, sounding much more serious, and promptly sat up straighter. He listened.

I strained to see the cake display, which was difficult due to the distance and the reflection of light on the glass.

“Wait, what? A boy has—because of a teddy bear?” Dust sounded confused, then sighed. “Yes, of course, consider me on my way.”

“Work is calling.” I noted dryly and looked at the waitress to wave her over for the bill, but she had her back to us.

“Of course it does." Dust made a soft grumbling sound, then looked at me questioningly. “Would you like to come along? See how I work?”

“What?” I made, taken aback. “I thought I was supposed to sleep on it.”

“You should. But watching me work can’t hurt your deliberations. Breaking curses and breaking magic aren't that different." He shrugged weakly, then raised his hand to get the waitress's attention.

“I, uh...” I swallowed hard. “Okay. Okay, yes, that...” Instead of stammering further, I nodded quickly. His warm smile made my stomach flutter.