Chapter Text
The stone walls of the cell seemed to draw all heat from the air, leaving Stiles cold through to his soul. He sat on the bed, since it was marginally more comfortable than the chair, and put the blanket between his back and the wall so that when he leaned back, he didn’t instantly end up shivering as the stone leeched heat from his body. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, as if there were some creature inside him, clawing away at his insides.
The room gradually grew brighter in reflection of the day outside, but it had been nine days since Stiles had seen real daylight. He felt like he ought to be scratching a count of days on the wall, like the prisoners in the old movies, but he didn’t need a tally to count the passing of time. He could tell day from night because the lamp in the corner of the cell was lit or dark at regular intervals, and by the movements of the people outside. Nine days since he’d been brought down here. Nearly two days since they’d brought him something to eat.
He should be focusing, trying to practice, but it was hard for him to focus on anything at the best of times, much less with the distraction of hunger working against him from the inside. Stiles leaned his head back against the wall and let his mind drift. As they so often did, his thoughts went to his dad. Did his dad miss him? Was his dad still looking for him? Had his dad given him up for dead?
It had been thirty seven days since he’d last seen his dad.
There were sounds from beyond the cell door. Somewhere, a heavy door clanged shut. Stiles really, really hoped that this was someone bringing him breakfast.
He got to his feet, swayed slightly, and then found his balance. He stood beside the bed, staring towards the door of his cell. He practically twitched as he stood there, anxiety surging through him. What if they decided he needed to fast another day? What if no one came at all? What if they’d forgotten about him altogether?
The cell door opened and Lady Rose walked in, carrying a bowl of steaming porridge. Stiles probably should be paying more attention to the tall and regal woman, but his eyes were locked on that bowl as she set it down on the table. Stiles longed to run over there and dive face-first into the bowl. He fidgeted slightly, eyes on the food, as he repeated the words self control over and over in his mind.
“Good morning, Stiles,” Lady Rose said.
“Good morning, my lady,” he replied. He didn’t dare move towards the porridge. This could be another test. She could be seeing how strong of will he was.
“I wish to see what progress you’ve made,” she said. “Show me the light.”
Stiles drew a breath and tried not to think about how this could be his chance to get out of here. He had to show he had control, that he could handle the power.
Stiles held his hands in front of him and pressed his palms together like he was praying. He focused on the power, on the flow of magic, the strength of his own will. In his mind, he pictured the energy like the flowing water and guided that flow through his body, down into his hands until his palms tingled with the promise of magic.
He drew his hands apart slowly, feeling the magic there, calling on it to shine.
A golden glow filled the cell, shining out from between his hands. There was no heat, but still the light seemed warming, a steady radiance that didn’t flicker or move. Stiles stared at the light, held it there, and tried to think of nothing more than keeping this spell stable. He couldn’t let himself think about the spell going wrong or…
The light dimmed slightly, but Stiles caught that stray thought before it went too far. Focus. He held the spell.
“A considerable improvement,” Lady Rose said. Stiles held the light there even when she spoke. After a minute, she nodded, and told him he could stop. Stiles let the spell end, the light faded away. The room seemed darker, colder, now that they were lit only by the lamp in the corner.
Stiles’ eyes fell again to the bowl on the table. He hoped this demonstration would be enough for Lady Rose to reward him with a meal. His hands shook a little and he was sure it wasn’t just from the strain of performing magic. She didn’t seem about to let him eat though. She reached into a pocket, hidden in the folds of the long robes she wore, and pulled out a pebble. She held this out towards Stiles. Stiles took it, already guessing what was coming next.
“Levitate the stone,” she ordered.
Stiles held the stone on the flattened palm of one hand. He again called up the energy, feeling it flow. He visualised the magic flowing around the pebble, covering it completely, then hardened to a solid coating like water freezing to ice. With slow care, he pictured the magic floating up, like an ice cube rising to the surface of a drink, carrying something inside it. He eased the stone upwards, holding it firm in the casing of magic, but careful to only use a gentle touch. If he tried to use too much power the –
The pebble exploded.
Stiles stood there, while Lady Rose brushed dust from the front of her robes.
“The spell worked,” Stiles pointed out. “The stone was definitely levitating before…” He gestured, indicating the fine dust which now coated the floor and the pair of them. From the expression on Lady Rose’s face, she didn’t think that was much of a consolation.
“You still lack focus,” she said.
“Well maybe it’s difficult to focus when I’m trapped in a hole away from daylight being starved to death,” Stiles snapped.
“Don’t you think you’re being melodramatic?”
“No I am not being melodramatic!” Stiles said. As he spoke, the dust from the exploded pebble rose up in the air, quivering slightly. An instant later, it flew outwards with a wall of force that splattered the dust against the walls and made the furniture skid a little way from him over the stone floor. Even Lady Rose rocked back on her heels as the energy passed over her.
Lady Rose gave a disappointed sigh.
“I’m sorry,” Stiles said quickly. Saying he hadn’t meant for that to happen wouldn’t help his case at all. Magical accidents were the reason he was down here.
Lady Rose turned away from Stiles. She looked at the bowl of porridge on the table and picked it up.
“Please,” said Stiles, “leave me the porridge. I’m sorry about that. I’ll try harder. I will. Just leave me some breakfast.”
“I don’t think you’d want to eat this now,” she said. She tilted the bowl towards him and he saw the layer of dust over the surface from the exploded stone.
“I’ll scrape the bad bits off,” Stiles said.
Lady Rose frowned, giving him a thoughtful look. Her eyes flickered up and down his body.
“Stiles,” she said, “when was your last meal?”
“Lunch,” he said, “the day before yesterday.”
“Are you sure?”
“Am I sure when I last got food?” Stiles asked, failing to keep the sarcasm from his tone. “Well, gee, maybe not. Maybe I’ve been sleep walking through a locked door and having great feasts without noticing.”
He forced himself to stop, holding back on the anger. Lashing out wouldn’t help. Especially, lashing out at Lady Rose. He needed her to think he was controlled and focused and well behaved and not at all likely to set fire to a building. Again.
Lady Rose turned away. Stiles had no way of knowing when she’d next come visit him, so he decided to take a chance, hopeless though it was.
“Could I please go outside for just five minutes,” Stiles said. “I won’t do anything, I won’t try any magic, I won’t cause any trouble, I promise, I just… I just want to go outside for a bit.”
She paused and looked back at him. Then walked out.
Stiles brushed pebble dust off the bed and sat down on it. He tucked his feet up under himself and tried not to cry. He had screwed up again. He wrapped his arms around his aching stomach and tried not to think about being stuck down here forever, locked away from sunlight, while his friends and his dad had no idea what had happened to him.
He had been sitting there only a few minutes when he heard noises outside the cell again. He disentangled his limbs and struggled to his feet. This time it was Carl who opened the door, holding a tray in one hand. He left the door open as he carried the tray to the table, knowing that even Stiles wasn’t stupid enough to try and escape. Carl put the tray down and offered Stiles a smile.
“Lady Rose says to eat it slowly,” he said.
“Thanks,” Stiles said. Carl nodded and let himself out, shutting the door firmly behind him again. Stiles sat down at the table and looked at the food arrayed before him. There was a bowl of porridge. There were two pieces of toast smeared with butter. There was a small dish holding a mixture of berries. There was an apple and a banana. Finally, there was a pot of herbal tea and a jug of juice.
Stiles wanted to dive right in and devour the lot, but he had to be careful of Lady Rose’ warning. This was probably another test. He didn’t know when he’d next get food so he would need to ration it out.
He could start with the porridge, which wouldn’t taste good cold, and save the toast and fruit for later. He could make this last all day if he was careful.
He picked up the spoon and took a small amount of porridge on the tip. He ate slowly, tiny spoonful by tiny spoonful, making this meal last as long as he possibly could. At last, he scraped his finger around the bowl, using it to get every last bit. He drank the tea down as he went, emptying the pot. With the hot food inside him, he felt properly warm for the first time in days.
He needed to avoid the temptation of the rest of the food though, so he left it there on the table and returned to his seat on the bed. He took the porridge spoon with him to practice the levitation spell. He rested the spoon on the palm of his hand and let the energy flow through him. He gathered his magic around that spoon, holding it as he had with the pebble. He lifted, bringing the spoon into the air. He held it there, keeping the spoon in place with nothing but will and magic.
For perhaps a minute, he simply held the spoon aloft, but it didn’t take long for his mind to start to drift and for his memory to fill with images of Harry Potter and Wingardium Leviosa. As soon as his mind was no longer fully on the spoon, it wobbled, starting to fall, spinning a little.
He tried to catch it, tried to wrap the spoon in magic once again, but catching a moving object was harder than lifting a still one. His power clashed against the movement and he overdid it. The spoon flew upwards, crumpling a little under the grip of his magic. It hit the ceiling and then, spell over, dropped down and hit Stiles on the head.
It bounced onto the floor. With a sigh, Stiles bent down and picked it up. The bowl of the spoon was flattened and the handle bent out of shape. Not a great example of control.
He wondered if he could reshape it. After all, he’d used magical forces to put it out of shape, so magic must be capable of bending it back. It would just take a little care.
He was just about to attempt it when the cell door opened and Lady Rose walked in, holding a canvas bag in one hand. Stiles hadn’t heard her approaching, so he hurried to his feet now. If she cared about his lack of protocol, she didn’t show it. She just looked at the tray and its contents.
“I thought you were hungry,” she said.
“I was,” Stiles said. “I am. But you said to eat slowly and I wasn’t sure when I’d next get food.”
She gave another disappointed sigh. Stiles wondered how he’d disappointed her this time.
“I meant that you should eat it slowly so you didn’t make yourself sick. Eat. I’ll make sure you get food today.”
Stiles wasn’t going to ignore a direct order like that, so he went to the table and grabbed a piece of toast, tearing into it with huge bites. He caught Lady Rose’s look and forced himself to slow down. Lady Rose stood beside the table, looking down at him while he ate.
“You are a problem, Stiles,” she said.
“You and my dad should start a club,” Stiles muttered. Then, “Sorry,” when he caught her look. Interrupting a powerful witch was probably a very bad idea.
“The holding rooms are not supposed to be a punishment,” she said. “This is not meant to be a prison.”
“Oh, my mistake, I guess I was confused by the heavy doors and all the locks.”
She sighed again.
“These rooms are supposed to be a teaching aid, a way of removing distractions so that disciples can improve their focus. Most apprentices find that a day or two in one of these rooms, time spent in meditation and practice, gives them what they need to channel their gifts with purpose. Time spent here lets you practice self-awareness, learning to recognise more clearly the sensations of magic. As I said, usually a day or two is enough to help those who are having difficulty. How long have you been in here?”
“Nine days,” Stiles said, around the last mouthful of toast.
“Nine days,” Lady Rose echoed. “Nine days and you’re still liable to cause explosions. Our training methods have been used over the centuries to give those with magical abilities control over their gifts. For generations, disciplines have learned through our ways and blossomed in their abilities. And now, we get you.”
“I guess you’ve never had a disciple with ADHD before,” Stiles said.
“It’s clear that solitary meditation here is not helping you. Fasting for a meal or two usually helps a disciple to be aware of the flow of energies through their body, but we can’t have you being starved to death.” There was anger in her tone and Stiles wondered if maybe the anger wasn’t actually directed at him. He wondered if she’d been unaware of how little food they’d been giving him.
“I think,” she continued, “it’s long past time for us to accept that our usual methods aren’t going to work with you. I think we need to try a new approach.”
She set the canvas bag on the table. Curious, Stiles reached out and looked inside. There were balls of yarn and pairs of knitting needles, as well as sheets of paper with instructions printed on them.
“I don’t understand,” Stiles said.
“You are going to learn how to knit.”
“I’d gathered that much,” he said, “but that isn’t helping me understand.”
“Your problem is staying focused on a spell. You’ll start a work of magic only to get distracted and lose control. Maybe the answer is to give you a secondary focus. Knitting will give your hands something to do, while freeing up your mind to perform magic.”
Stiles gave her a sceptical look. She shrugged.
“Give it a go. If it doesn’t work, we’ll think of something else to try.”
She left him then, once again closing the door on him and leaving him trapped in the cold, stone cell. Stiles reached into the bag and pulled out the instructions.