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[credere]

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[magician_king]

"One of the nails. One of the tiny little bits that make up water, for example. A tiny bit of something."

He says;

"Little specs so small you can't see them, or the spaces between them. I can show you, but we need a teakettle and some sugar."

[credere]

"That's alright," he says, then ventures: "Like when a person's skin all looks the same from a long way away, but when you get close you see all the little holes?"

Pores, he means.

[magician_king]

"But on a much bigger scale."

He agrees, with a nod;

"Think as small a piece of your body as a human is a piece of the world."

Okay, while he turns back to stripping the window down;

"But you can't boil water without outside heat, right? It's a rule about the world that works the same way, every time. There would be no way in the real world to be at a standstill and heat up a cup of coffee."

[credere]

Credence nods, slowly, and tries to sum up:

"So the...state, of matter, depends on how much it moves? How much....energy, it has."

[magician_king]

"Perfect. There are some weird exceptions for things that catch fire-" But he makes a handwaving gesture, don't need to think about that right now, so "-magic, is when you break that rule. You could make a spell that would make ice hot. You could make a spell to heat up your coffee out of nowhere. Or a spell to keep ice from leeching the energy, the heat out of you. Magic is when a law breaks. Everything else is determination, fate, or science."

[credere]

Credence looks...very, very uncomfortable.

"Or the Creator."

Whose wisdom is betrayed, surely, by the act of sorcery.

[magician_king]

"I knew a man named Richard, who was a magician."

He says- remembering how annoyed he'd been at the time, and how grateful he is now.

"He was a very devout Christian. I wasn't mature enough to understand to get along with him, but I remember him saying, Magic is the tools of the Maker. There is a Person who built the house, and then He left, and when He left, He left His tools lying around in the garage. Then we found them, and we picked them up, and we started making guesses about how they work. Now we’re learning to use them. And that’s magic. And when pressed on whether or not God would be angry with us for stealing and playing with what he left, Richard concluded that He would never give us anything He didn't want us to find."

[credere]

"Of course He would," Credence says, looking bewildered by the idea (and privately unimpressed by Richard's lack of theological rigor). "We are given the capacity to sin so that we can choose to turn away from it, or else salvation is meaningless."

[magician_king]

"Alice, who was much smarter than Richard, disagreed. She thought magic was organic, something beautiful that grew in and around and behind the world, on account of the complexity of the creation."

He provides instead.

[credere]

This, Credence struggles to dispute - not because Alice is 'much smarter' but because he knows how Quentin feels about her.

"So why would the Scripture call it an abomination, if we choose to use it?"

[magician_king]

"I don't really know."

He says, openly.

"It's a question many people have different answers to. Like all religion." And, as it occurs to him; "Hey, have you met Tiffany? Is she still around?"

[credere]

He nods.

"Yes, in the chapel. We've talked a little. I didn't think she..."

Had powers, has to seriously debate these issues with herself.

[magician_king]

"She doesn't, but she has a lot of intelligent stuff to say about literal interpretations of scripture."

He says, is why he thought of her.

[credere]

"Oh. Alright, I. I'll talk to her about it."

He wrings his hands.

"What will you need to fix the window?"

[magician_king]

"Nothing today. I don't know if I can do anything about the broken out panes, not unless you have the shattered pieces, but-"

But for now he refocuses, touching his fingertip to one pane that just has a spiderweb crack passing along it. He breathes in, breathes out, closes his eyes, lifts his hands and contorts them into one fantastic shape- then touches the glass again, and begins to talk it back off its' semi-shattered ledge.

[credere]

Credence watches, holding his breath, as the glass seems to -- for lack of any other word - heal itself. It's a simple thing, compared to some of the magic he's seen, and yet it astonishes him.

"Thank you," he whispers, when he's done.

[magician_king]

"So when you came to me before?" He asks, moving onto the next pane- broken through, but still with enough glass to stretch under his touch. "Why did you want to begin learning?"

[credere]

He shrugs helplessly.

"People think that I can. And that - I should."

His mother isn't around to dictate his life to him any more; Mr Graves isn't here to make grandiose, deeply conditional promises. But that doesn't mean he's suddenly going to start making his own decisions.

[magician_king]

"Fuck people. Do what you want to do."

Says Quentin, who can definitely be that shoulder-angel for him.

"This still makes you really uncomfortable, doesn't it?"

[credere]

"I don't know what I want to do," he says, shaking his head. "I've never had to know."

[magician_king]

"Well, I realize the depth of the hypocrisy of me saying this, but your first step should probably be figuring out what would make you happy."

[credere]

Yes. That sounds simple.

"How?"

[magician_king]

"Close your eyes."

Quentin instructs. This, he can do for him.

"And take in a deep breath in through your nose, and let it out through your mouth."

[credere]

Credence isn't entirely sure where this is going, but he can follow orders. He shuts his eyes, slowly pulls in a breath, pushes it out.

[magician_king]

"Settle so you're sitting comfortably, and breathe in to the count of four, two, three, four, hold the breath, two, three, four, and let it out, two three, four, five, six."

He says, and runs him through that a few times, keeping one eye on him while he works on the glass.

"And as you breath, you're going to feel yourself relaxing. Feel your shoulders drop down, as they get looser. Feel the muscles in your brow relax. Feel the way each breath releases tension you're carrying."