In the case of partial transmogrification, its effects are known to extend beyond the directly afflicted area.

  Excerpt from 'Introduction to the Workings of Magic'

  “She's waking up,” a male voice said close by. Maria couldn't see who was speaking as the light overwhelmed her eyes, turning everything white.

  She blinked repeatedly as the brightness started to subside. Shapes became visible and Maria identified them as human figures leaning over her.

  I'm lying down? Where am I? What happened?

  She tried to move her arms to no avail.

  “Don't try to move yet,” another voice said, this one female. “You've been asleep for quite some time.”

  Maria opened her mouth to speak, yet she only managed to produce a dry, croaking sound. As she began to regain consciousness, she noticed that her throat was parched and that she was starving. The rest of her body felt strange as well, drained of all feeling except for her left arm, which was home to a multitude of tingling sensations; some more painful than others.

  “Give her the water.”

  A small glass decanter appeared in front of her and cool water was poured into her mouth, which she greedily swallowed.

  “Can you talk?” the voice asked after Maria had her fill.

  “Yes,” Maria whispered. She coughed violently once. “Yes,” she repeated, this time in a more audible tone. She turned her head to look at the owner of the voice. A woman in her thirties, her dark-blonde hair bound behind her head, wearing a white shirt with long sleeves. She was one of three people standing next to Maria's bed.

  She's a healer. They all are. I must be in the alluvium.

  “How do you feel?” the woman asked.

  “I'm hungry,” Maria said. “I feel dizzy.”

  “You've been in a coma for five days.”

  Five days?

  Again Maria tried to raise herself up, and again she failed. Her arms and legs moved, but there was no strength in them.

  She gave up the attempt. “What happened?”

  “That can wait,” the healer replied. “My name is Halinda and I have some questions for you. Are you in pain anywhere?”

  “No, it's just my arm that feels strange.”

  “Can you move it?”

  “A bit.”

  Why does it feel like this?

  Then the memories rushed back to her. The cellar underneath the ring mansion. The chest with the spelltomes.

  The green flames—my arm!

  Maria turned her head to look at it, but it was hidden beneath the blanket that covered her entire body. “My arm,” she mumbled.

  “We can talk about your arm later,” Halinda said. “What is the last thing you remember?”

  “The flames. Green flames. My arm was burning.”

  “Did you have any enchantments active when this happened?”

  “I think so,” Maria said, trying to make sense of her still garbled memories. “A shade shroud... no wait, that's not right. Ashira's Veil, I think. Yes, that was it.”

  Halinda exchanged a telling glance with the male healer on the other side of her bed.

  “Why is that important?” Maria asked. She didn't like the way the healers were acting.

  “There were... complications,” Halinda said. “Your life was in danger when you were brought here. We had to keep you in a deep sleep to even be able to treat you. Now that you have successfully awoken, however, I'm optimistic about your further recovery.”

  Her words did little to assuage Maria's worries as her question had not been answered. “And my arm? What happened to my arm?”

  “Later,” Halinda said.

  “Not later. Now,” Maria demanded. To weave spells she needed both her arms, as they led the captured ?ther towards her hands.

  If I can't weave anymore I can no longer be a magistra. At least, not truly.

  Again Halinda exchanged a glance with the male healer, who shook his head.

  They don't want to tell me.

  Feeling annoyed, she tried to channel Quintessence through her left arm.

  Nothing happened. The sensation similar to the feeling of water flowing over her hands when washing them did not appear.

  Despite the warmth of the bed, she felt cold. It can't be...

  “What's wrong?” Halinda asked, noting the shock on Maria's face.

  Maria did not respond, and attempted to channel her other two preferred elements.

  Wonder was as ineffective as Quintessence, and with her anxiety turning to fear, she tried Radiance.

  For a fraction of an instant nothing happened, and then a hot jolt surged through the length of her entire arm. Pain stung her left shoulder and armpit, and she squealed like a child stung by a bee.

  Halinda grabbed hold of Maria's left shoulder. “What's wrong? What's happening?”

  Her grab intensified the pain. “Don't touch!” Maria yelled.

  Her eyes filled with tears and she noticed a thin wisp of smoke emanating from a tiny black spot in her blanket.

  It grew bigger. Much bigger. More black spots joined the first one, and the stench of burning linen entered Maria's nose. She could feel the heat along the left side of her body, like sitting next to an open fire.

  Her entire arm now felt as if it was being flayed, and despite her lack of strength she thrashed around violently while the male healer tried to hold her down.

  “She's burning again!” he exclaimed. “Get Dasi in here now!”

  The blanket finally caught flame and Halinda threw it off her. “Get her up or the bed will catch fire as well!”

  In a daze, Maria saw the flames that sprung forth from her arm. They weren't green like the last ones she had seen, but strangely transparent and devoid of colour. At the very edges of the moving flames a line of fading white light showed their outline.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw another person approach, and she suddenly felt much cooler, the heat no longer burning her side.

  “If you are doing this, you must stop it!” Halinda shouted. She had wrapped the half-burned blanket around her own hands in an attempt to keep Maria's limp arm away from the rest of her body.

  I'm not doing anything, Maria thought as the flaying changed into the sensation of having every fibre in her arm violently pulled. I stopped channelling the moment it hurt.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The commotion around her fell away as she focused completely on the feeling in her arm. It wasn't the same as when she had channelled ?ther at all. That was a detached sensation, like dragging a wooden board through water by pulling an attached rope. You could feel it move, but the movement was distant. The sensation felt by the channeller was only a translation of what happened inside the ?ther.

  What she felt now, however, was not distant at all. She could feel something surging and manifesting inside every part of her arm, and that something fuelled the flames that the people around her desperately tried to extinguish.

  This started when I channelled Radiance, Maria thought, feeling detached. So if I channel Quintessence, will it stop as that is its counterpart? Or will it become worse?

  Someone grabbed hold of her arm with some kind of metal tool. It caused yet another peculiar feeling in her arm as if she could sense the entire shape of the tool rather than just the spots where the cold metal tips touched her.

  I have to do something, she thought.

  She channelled Quintessence.

  The flames immediately retracted, leaving a glow with a very light-green hue that appeared to consist of countless loosely arranged threads. The heat vanished shortly after along with the afterglow, leaving only the sight of her flesh.

  It worked, Maria thought, getting a good look at her arm. The skin. It's so... dark.

  The flesh of her arm had twisted in upon itself. The burn scars covered its entire length, but they didn't look right. Rather than the yellow and white of a severe burn, her entire arm was a uniform deep, dark red.

  She wiggled her fingers and watched them move erratically. I can still move them.

  The voices around her started to come back to her as the surging feeling in her arm dissipated.

  “Well done, Dasi,” Halinda said to the new arrival. “I was really worried there for a moment.”

  Dasi shook her head. “That wasn't me. I just cooled her body. I did nothing with her arm.”

  “I did it,” Maria said, still staring at her arm. “When I channelled Radiance, it started. And with Quintessence it stopped.”

  “You channelled ?ther through it?!” Halinda exclaimed. She wanted to say something else, but the male healer stopped her.

  “It's our fault because we didn't tell her.”

  “Tell me what?” Maria asked. “That my arm is transmogrified?” She said it without thinking, yet the moment that dreaded last word left her mouth, she understood.

  The male healer gave a curt nod. “Yes.”

  Maria fell back into her pillow.

  “I'm going to bandage it up again,” Halinda said. “So don't channel anything. Not anywhere in your body.”

  Maria watched motionless as her dark-red arm was wrapped with white.

  “I think you've had enough excitement for the moment,” Halinda said after finishing up. “Get some rest. We'll bring you some food soon.”

  Maria turned her head in to the pillow. She felt drained, especially her left arm, which now felt like a hollow shell.

  She kept her gaze fixed on the bandage until she dozed off.

  Later that day, after eating a large portion of porridge that she found easy to stomach, Halinda announced that Maria had a visitor.

  “Normally we wouldn't allow you any visitors just yet, but we've made an exception this time.”

  “Who is it?” Maria asked as she eyed the door to her room. It's Jolene, probably. She must have been worried sick.

  Halinda left the room. “You can enter,” Maria heard her say to someone in the corridor.

  The person who entered the room was not Jolene.

  “Magistra Kannados,” Maria said. “How unexpected.”

  Tayla strode into the room with a smile on her face. “Maria. It's good to see you awake again.”

  She sat down on a chair next to Maria's bed, her soft green robe falling around her as if it could not be entangled by anything.

  “Are you feeling well?” Tayla asked.

  “I am, thank you.”

  “And your left arm?”

  Maria's smile dropped. She didn't want to be reminded of that right now. “It's completely transmogrified.”

  “Did you know they wanted to amputate it? Jolene stopped them before they could.”

  “Amputate?” Maria said, not having considered that before. “That would have been dangerous.”

  “Indeed. I'm glad to see both of you paid attention to my lessons. Transmogrification usually extends beyond the visible part, and cutting through that might cause great problems.” Her smile vanished. “This is true for your case as well, as was recently demonstrated.”

  Maria glanced at her bandaged arm on the bed. “You heard about what happened this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can't weave spells anymore.” She swallowed. “I'm no longer fit to be a magistra.”

  Tayla placed her hand lightly on Maria's burned arm. “Being a magistra is more than being able to weave spells. It's foremost about responsibility. Magic can be used as a tool or as a weapon, and being a magistra is a recognition that you can handle these responsibilities.” As she spoke, her expression grew more serious.

  She looks like she did ten years ago, berating me for something bad I did. The memory made her shift around uneasily.

  “Could you tell me what happened after I passed out?” Maria asked, trying to change the subject. “Did the Royal Guard arrest the Callium archmagister? What happened to the White Candle tomes I found? Nobody here wants to tell me anything.”

  “A lot of things happened during your coma. It's more than I can tell you given the nature of my visit. The short answer to your question as that Sill Yerwede fled the city and that Callium, as of yesterday, was disbanded.”

  A wave of happiness and amazement flooded Maria. “Really? Truly? Callium has been disbanded?” She felt like she wanted to sing with joy, and she looked around the room for other people to share her happiness.

  “Why are you happy about this?” Tayla asked. The tone of her voice had shifted, from soothing and melodic to sharp and fierce.

  Maria looked back at her. Tayla had narrowed her eyes, which were no longer warm and caring. Her jaw had tightened and her cheeks were flushed red.

  She's angry, Maria thought. Furious, even. The realization crushed her exultation, and she instinctively tried to make herself smaller. In all her years at the guild, she had never seen Tayla angry. Not once. Yet now she was.

  “Well?” Tayla snapped. “Answer the question.”

  “Because that's what we wanted...?” Maria said softly, avoiding Tayla's searing stare. She felt like she was twelve years old again, in her first year at the guild.

  “We? Who is this 'we' you talk about, Maria? Because if I recall correctly, the vendetta ended days before this operation of yours.”

  “That's...” Maria started, but Tayla cut her off.

  “Do you even have any idea how far out of line you went? To rustle up of some of your more trusting sisters and send them to do something dangerous like that? People died there, Maria. Bo still cries her eyes out every day because she killed a man, and if it had not been for sheer luck you and several of your sisters would have been dead alongside him. You didn't even ask me if something happened to your sisters. You only want to know if you destroyed your enemy.”

  Maria wanted to cry. Her tears did not come, however, and she simply sat stunned beneath Tayla's continuing verbal onslaught. “And what about Callium? How many adepts and apprentices do they have who had nothing to do with the machinations of their supposed betters? Were you content for them to get hurt? Do you care that they are left without a guild now, setting back their education for years? Are you okay with any of this? Is this what you learned from us, from me, after fourteen years? Tell me, Maria. Tell me truly.” As she spoke the last words, the tone of her voice became more urgent, almost pleading.

  Maria tried to think, but no argument came to her that wouldn't be an evasion. She could only speak the truth.

  “I didn't think about it.”

  “Of course you didn't. It's only the result that matters, after all.”

  Hearing the finality of her words caused the dam in Maria to burst and she started to sob.

  “I'm sorry,” she said between heaves. “I just thought... I just thought everything would be worth it in the end. I only did it for our guild. You must believe me.”

  Tayla sighed, closed her eyes and placed her hand, fingers spread, against her forehead. “I believe you, Maria. But this is not what the guild wanted. This is what you wanted.”

  Maria simply nodded, her arms useless to stop the tears flowing from her eyes.

  Tayla opened her eyes and straightened up. The anger on her face was gone now, leaving a mix of sadness and disappointment.

  “You were always like this. Even back when you were a child. A lot of magistras believed that Jolene was the daring one, but I knew better. It was you who held great passion and determination. Jolene was the level-headed one who kept you in check.” She reached into her robe and produced a clean handkerchief to wipe Maria's face. “I suppose this time not even she could stop you.”

  “She tried,” Maria said, “but I didn't listen to her. When Magister De Ekkar contacted me, I was so certain that—”

  With a raised finger, Tayla hushed her. “There is no need for you to explain anything to me. It's my fault as well. I let you take charge of the vendetta even though I knew—somewhere in the back of my mind—I knew that you were capable of doing something like this. That's why I came to see you that day when Kasha told us about the attack on Callium. No matter how often I told myself that you would never do such a thing, that nagging voice didn't go away, and I had to ask you myself.”

  Tayla closed her eyes and shook her head. “I thought that letting you lead the vendetta would provide you with an outlet for your passion. And it did, though not in the way I hoped. That is my mistake: I allowed you the room to make yours.”

  “I let you all down,” Maria said between sobs.

  Tayla rose from her chair and transformed again into the stern teacher Maria remembered from her past. “You did let us all down, Maria. Which is why the archmagistra has revoked your membership of the guild.”

  Maria's world collapsed. She stopped crying, too astonished to continue.

  Revoked your membership. Those three words kept repeating themselves over and over in her head. Revoked your membership.

  “But I don't—”

  “Don't make this more difficult than it already is,” Tayla cut her off once more. “You acted on your own, while exposing your sisters to life-threatening situations. You paid no heed to the full extent of how your actions would affect others, and you upset the current precarious balance in the city even further. The most damning thing, however, is that you did it all to advance your own personal agenda. This is not how a magistra of the Daughters of Ashira should act, nor a magistra in any other guild for that matter. If you can't take this punishment in the manner that a responsible magistra should, then that is merely more proof that you are unfit to be one.”

  Maria's head dropped. Any ounce of strength she had felt before left her, and she leaned against her pillow as if she was a corpse.

  “I understand,” she said after a few moments. It felt like someone else was speaking, and she was looking on from the outside.

  Tayla looked down upon Maria. “If it's any consolation, your actions did help prevent what could have been the start of the Third Rios M?lstrom. You can take pride in that at least.”

  M?lstrom?

  The word lingered in Maria's mind. With the shock of being kicked out of the guild still fresh, it took her a while to properly register what Tayla had said.

  She looked up to ask about it, only to find that Tayla had left the room.

  I am alone, Maria thought as her tears welled up again. Truly alone.