The heat from the forge made Sabrina wince, and she turned her head to one side as a hot gust of air swept over her. Tightening her grip on the large tongs requiring the use of both her gloved hands, she forced herself to count, waiting a few more seconds before pulling the metal out of the sweltering flames.

Hurrying over to a bucket of water, she plunged the metal into the cold liquid, holding her breath as plumes of steam rose upwards, keeping her eyes closed until the vapor had been carried away by the strong cross breeze blowing through the open windows.

Sabrina then made her way to a large wooden table, its surface marred by numerous scorch marks, as well as a few shallow divots where bits of wood had accidentally been chipped away by the bite of an errant tool.

Releasing the now-cool metal, she set the tongs aside and pulled off her spelled gloves. The seamstresses in the Hexen coven had created them especially for her, as they did for every metallurgist, and while Sabrina always cast a protection spell when working with especially volatile compounds, wearing the gloves never failed to make her feel safer.

The only thing she disliked about the gloves was that she hadn't been able to watch them being created. She recognized some of the spells on them, of course, spells to reduce heat or cold or to disperse poisonous liquids, such as mercury, rather than absorbing them. But the majority of the spells weren't simply applied—they were woven into the very fabric of the gloves themselves, layered deep within each stitch of embroidery, using magic known only to those with an affinity for sewing.

Sabrina hated having only partial knowledge about something, especially something she used on an almost daily basis; it rubbed at her like a pebble inside her boot. But, frustrating or not, it couldn't be helped, so she turned her attention away from the gloves and back to the metal on the table.

The oversized iron ring was intended to be a door knocker. Running her fingers over the cooled surface, she searched for any bumps or malformations; when she didn't find any, she nodded, pleased with herself.

The knocker would be hung on the outer door set within the high stone wall surrounding the castle. Once installed, it would be enchanted, allowing the members of the High Council to hear it wherever they were in the enormous building, regardless of the time, alerting them to the arrival of a visitor after the usual hours for such things had passed.

Given that her mother was the Sprechen, the leader of the High Council, Sabrina assumed she was going to hear the door knocker clang out in their shared apartment at least a few times. Hopefully her mother could confine the spell to her bedroom or perhaps to a frequency only she could hear, as Sabrina didn't fancy being awakened in the middle of the night over something that didn't involve her. It would also make sense for the members of the High Council to take turns being responsible for answering the knocker, but knowing her mother, she would likely insist on being involved every single time.

Sabrina scowled...yet another unpleasant aspect of her mother's leadership position.

Well, there was nothing she could do about that, either, and Sabrina prided herself on her ability to know when the solution to a problem was worth pursuing and when it was time to shift her attention elsewhere, so she picked up a polishing cloth and began running it over the heavy iron ring.

Tante Olga, one of the senior Hexen metallurgists, would be by to fetch it soon. While she wasn't actually Sabrina's aunt, it was customary to address elder witches in the coven using the title Tante until you turned eighteen and came of age. Doing so was supposed to reinforce the sense of family, but sometimes Sabrina felt as if it merely reinforced the power differential, reminding witchlings like herself how powerless she truly was, as she was still six months away from her eighteenth birthday.

Looking down at the polished door knocker, she briefly considered asking to watch it being installed; she'd been the one to create it, after all. But someone from the High Council would also have to be present to apply the necessary spells and that someone would most likely be her mother. She would view Sabrina's participation as proof her daughter was interested in the High Council, which would lead her to push Sabrina to assume some sort of junior leadership role or start shadowing Council members in preparation for one day taking her place among them.

Sabrina had no desire to do any such thing.

So, while she didn't like forgoing the chance to learn something new involving metal, it was also a price she was willing to pay to avoid yet another argument with her mother about her future in the coven.

Setting the finished door knocker aside and giving it an affectionate pat, Sabrina made her way to a set of wide, evenly-stacked shelves holding numerous items in various states of disarray. Picking up a silver candelabra, she examined one of its seven candleholders. Rather than standing up straight like the others, it was bent sideways at an odd angle, and she didn't even need to connect with the silver to know what had happened...she'd repaired enough items over the years to know the object had been dropped on a hard surface, most likely the castle's stone floor, resulting in the damage.

Running the back of her hand over her forehead, wiping away the long strands of dark brown hair trying to escape her braid, Sabrina sighed.

"How many candelabras do you think we've repaired?" she asked aloud, directing her question to her workmate, Bettina, bent over something at a nearby table.

Bettina raised her head. "Do you mean this year or since we discovered our affinities?"

"Since discovering our affinities," clarified Sabrina.

Bettina set down the gold pocket watch she'd been studying and tilted her head to one side, as she always did when considering something especially problematic. Sunshine streamed through the overhead skylight, highlighting the golden strands scattered through her thick chestnut hair. "I'd have to check the records to know exactly, but off the top of my head, I'd say hundreds, easily. Why?"

"Some days it feels like thousands," grumbled Sabrina.

"Well, at least we know our affinities are needed," chuckled Bettina, good-natured as ever, but Sabrina merely scowled.

"Don't you ever get tired of this?" she asked, setting the candelabra down and resting her palms against the edge of the table.

Bettina gave her a quizzical look. "Tired of using my affinity and connecting with magic? No. Never."

"Not using your affinity," replied Sabrina. "Using it the way others tell you to. Using it to repair things. People break things, we fix them, and then they inevitably get broken again. It's so...predictable. There's no variety."

Bettina shrugged her broad shoulders. "I never thought of it like that." Realizing her answer hadn't been satisfactory, she smiled. "I don't think you're wrong," she said in a tone Sabrina could tell was meant to be encouraging, "but perhaps we just feel differently about the work we do."

Sabrina nodded, appreciating Bettina's honesty, but also wishing the other girl understood her better or felt some inkling of the things she did. No one ever seemed to feel as she did about anything.

Then again, how Bettina felt was exactly how most of the Hexen witches felt regarding their affinity...they were grateful for it and happy to use it in whatever way best served the coven. The Hexen motto, For each of us, for all of us, rang in Sabrina's ears, and her scowl deepened.

"I can repair the candelabra," offered Bettina. "I only just started fixing this watch for a traveler. I'm fine to switch."

Sabrina managed a half-hearted smile, genuinely appreciating Bettina's kindness even though the other girl still didn't understand the point she was trying to make.

"It's not about what I'm fixing," she tried again. "I'm tired of fixing things at all."

Bettina blinked, clearly caught off-guard by such a statement. Sabrina had been harboring such feelings for so long, it was a relief to share them, but given that she'd never voiced them out loud before, she could understand Bettina's surprise.

"What would you rather be doing instead of repairing things?" Bettina finally asked.

Sabrina almost replied, Whatever I want, but stopped the words before they could escape her mouth. While it felt good letting out some of what she usually kept to herself, she wasn't ready to be quite so bold yet...especially when her words could be overheard and stood a chance of being repeated back to her mother.

Pressing her lips shut, Sabrina merely shook her head and gazed down at the candelabra.

Bettina, who was nothing if not patient, tried again. "So, what are you going to do about it?"

"There isn't anything I can do about it," snapped Sabrina.

When Bettina didn't respond, Sabrina raised her gaze and looked at the other metal-worker, worried she might have taken Sabrina's unhappiness personally, but thankfully, Bettina simply shook her head.

"Come on, Sabrina. We shared the same dormitory until we were twelve, and I've worked with you almost every single day since then. I know at least a few things about you, and one of them is you can't be content in a situation that doesn't make you happy. You can't stand a problem without a solution. So if this is a problem for you, you need to find a solution."

Sabrina sighed. Unfortunately, finding a solution wasn't the difficult part. The difficult part was that the solution she'd arrived at was completely unacceptable.

"What if no one likes my solution?" Sabrina asked, raising her gaze to Bettina's.

"I can't imagine something like what other people think bothering you, much less stopping you," replied Bettina, her smile both teasing and warm at the same time. "If you could use magic to solve the problem, how would you like to see it resolved?"

Sabrina pressed her lips together, keeping the words firmly behind her teeth until she was certain she was ready to let them out. Eventually, she said, "I'd like to have my own workspace."

Bettina startled at that, and hurt flashed across her eyes too quickly for her to hide it. While Sabrina didn't always see the need to explain herself or her decisions, she felt in this instance, given Bettina's support, the other metallurgist deserved to know more.

"It's not you," she assured Bettina, which was true. "You're smart and talented and always on time. I've never minded working with you. It's being here," she gestured around the workspace. "It makes me available to the other Hexen. They know where to find me, and I can't ever just go someplace and work on what I want without being interrupted."

Sabrina grasped the edge of the table for support, the pent-up frustration she'd kept to herself for so long begging to be released.

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life repairing things for the Hexen," she continued."I don't want to just fix things...I want to create them."

The more she spoke, the more passionate she felt, like a fire had caught inside her and was growing brighter and stronger with each proclamation she made. She quickly held up a hand as Bettina opened her mouth, no doubt to protest that they made things all the time.

"I don't want to make things for other people," she clarified. "I don't want to take a piece of metal and make another mirror or jewelry box or gate hinge or door knob. I want to make what I want. I want to create things that interest me."

"But there's no reason you can't do that now," protested Bettina. "After you finish your other work, you can make whatever you want, whenever you want."

Sabrina shook her head. "It's not whatever I want, whenever I want...it's after I finish everything else, and I always run the risk of being too tired. I hate being in the middle of something and getting an idea and not being able to study it right then and there. If I wait until I have free time, the ideas are gone, and once they're gone, they don't always come back."

A shiver coursed through her at the thought of so many lost ideas, and she shook her head, unable to dwell on how many precious, potentially life-changing notions she'd been forced to ignore in favor of focusing on whatever task she'd been assigned to complete.

She didn't want to keep doing that.

She couldn't keep doing that.

"I just want to work someplace where I can close the door and ensure no one interrupts me," she finished. "I'm never going to get any better at my affinity if I don't have dedicated time to spend with it."

"How could you possibly get any better at your affinity?" asked Bettina incredulously. "Sabrina, you're the greatest metallurgist in the entire coven...possibly the greatest in a century, according to our teachers. You're already the best. How could you be better than that?"

"I'm the best compared to everyone here," agreed Sabrina. "But I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what I'm actually capable of. And to do that, I need time and privacy."

Bettina gazed down at the gold pocket watch she was still holding, gently running her thumb over the intricate chain.

"So, what are you going to do?" she asked after a moment of silence, looking back up at Sabrina.

Sabrina sighed. "I suppose I'll start by mentioning it to Tante Olga and see what she says."

Bettina nodded and offered a sympathetic smile before returning to her work.

Without additional fuel to sustain them, the flames of passion Sabrina had kindled with her earlier words about what she wanted to do with her life slowly died out, and a coldness swept through her, prompting her to wrap her arms around herself. Her chest suddenly seemed filled with little more than the ashes of her dreams, and it took a great effort of will to force her attention back to the candelabra.

Why did the life she wanted have to be so far from the life she had?

Picture by creative_tomek from Pixabay