I fell to the ground, my hands becoming wet with the morning dew. The saliva in my mouth was tainted with the metallic pang of blood. I fought to catch my breath, but it was beginning to feel like an impossible task.

"Up," Thomas said, his voice soft yet steady and unyielding. "Try it again."

I swallowed shakily and pushed myself to my feet. I felt exhausted, drained. I took a deep breath and gathered myself together.

I stared down at the pitiful stem of the plant I was being forced to grow. After several failed attempts, I had gotten nowhere. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and focused on the plant.

I reached out to it, just like Thomas had taught me. I could feel the energy of the small plant pulsing against other, unfamiliar forms of energy that was the sky, the ground, and everything in between. I think. That's what Thomas said it was.

According to Thomas, performing magic was nothing more than the harnessing of this energy. Of pulling it together and bending it to your will. It's just as hard as it sounds.

I pulled at the energy of the plant despite my insides screaming at me to stop due to my exhaustion. If I went any further, I think I would have fainted. I was fully aware of the time it was taking me to do this, and more importantly, of Thomas watching me. I felt a warm bead of sweat trickle down my face, but I kept at it for a while.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and I let go of the plant's energy.

"Well, you didn't do too bad. It grew a little," Thomas said, though by the gentle, non-excited way he said that, I wouldn't be too surprised if it hadn't grown at all.

I struggled to catch my breath, panting heavily. "I can't do this," I said. "I can't do this."

"Alexander—" Thomas began.

"I can't. I'm sorry, Thomas. I can't do this."

"Yes you can! I know you can! You just have to focus, try harder. Do it again."

"What's the point?" I hissed. "I can't do this, Thomas." I let out a sigh and sat down on the ground, holding my face in my hands.

"Alexander, you can't give up," Thomas said. I could feel him sit down next to me and place a hand on my back. Energy surged through my body with the warmth of his touch. I drew in a deep breath of the cold air surrounding us. "You can do this. I believe in you."

"Not having much luck?" sounded a voice behind us.

I turned to see two figures coming towards us on the path that snaked through the forest. The castle was just visible in the distance, mostly obscured by the fog of the early morning. I recognized the two as Lafayette and Angelica.

"What are you two doing out here?" Thomas called, rising to his feet.

Lafayette shrugged while Angelica answered with, "Washington sent us to make sure that there aren't any of the King's men in town."

"Really? Because Migellis is the other way," Thomas returned with a knowing grin, crossing his arms. I assumed Migellis is the town near the castle.

"Is it now?" Lafayette asked passively, uninterested. His eyes rested on me, and he proceeded to smile. "Hello, Alex. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine! I'm just... settling in," I returned, unsure of what else to say. The truth was that I was doing horrible and I wanted to go home, but I wasn't going to say that out loud.

"No luck with the magic?" Angelica asked, frowning sympathetically in an understanding way that somehow made me more frustrated than I already was.

"The plant did grow," I responded as politely as I could, but judging by the look she gave Thomas, she didn't fall for it.

"It's alright, Alexander. You will get it, I promise," Lafayette said, his smile kind.

"Yeah, I'm sure I will."

"Alexander, I've seen you do much harder things than grow a plant," Thomas said to me, sensing the lack of spirit in my reply. There was a glisten of humor in his eyes as he turned to the other two. "Do you guys remember when he opened that giant chasm in the Earth?"

Angelica grinned and shook her head. "I still, to this day, have no clue how you managed to do that."

I bit back a smile and moved so that I was sitting on my knees, looking up at Angelica and Lafayette. "What happened?"

"We were running a mission when we were discovered by a group of the King's soldiers," Thomas explained. There was a certain look in his eyes that I couldn't place and looked unfamiliar to me, and his tone was more neutral than it usually was, as if he was trying purposefully to keep something out of it. "We ran away, of course, and they chased after us. I needed to open up a portal to get away from them but we had projectiles and magic at our backs, which makes it hard to focus. So, you opened up a giant, gaping hole that swallowed up about all of their men and gave me the chance to open the portal."

"And that's not fair because rocks are my specialty," said Lafayette, but his teasing smile assured me that he wasn't really angry. His smile vanished a few seconds later. "Well, anyway, this has been fun but we really should finish up with what we're supposed to be doing."

"We actually should start doing what we're supposed to be doing," Angelica returned.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

"See you around," Angelica said with a smile as she turned and followed Lafayette back down the path where they had come.

Thomas waited for a moment before turning to me. "Alright. Back up. You had your break."

I stifled a groan and complied. After another dozen more failed attempts which left me breathless and even more hopeless than I already was, Thomas sighed and allowed me to stop. The sun was beating hard on our backs now, and the chilly morning breeze had completely vanished. It was becoming even harder to center all of my attention on the plant. Of course they have mosquitoes here, too. Why wouldn't they?

"How am I supposed to do this?" I asked. "If I can't even focus enough to grow this stupid flower in an empty field, how am I supposed to do more useful and powerful things during a battle?"

"Practice. We'll keep working on it, Alexander. It took me a while before I could successfully grow a plant. I certainly didn't get it on the first day, and I doubt you will either. But, if you want to move on to something that might be a little bit more useful for the time being, we can do that."

"Yes!" I exclaimed, grateful for the opportunity to redeem myself. "Anything, please!"

Thomas' smile was nothing short of relieving. He drew his sword out of the sheath that hung at his side and handed it to me carefully. I admired the weapon, running my fingers carefully over what looked like a meticulously crafted blade. I don't know much about swords, but this is a nice sword.

"Learning to fight with weapons is just as important as learning to fight with magic, because you never know when magic could fail on you. You use to be a really great swordsman."

"I was a swords guy?!"

"You were a swords guy." 

A sword appeared out of thin air, and I almost freaked out for a second before remembering that making items appear from nothing was in Thomas' skillset. Thomas took hold of it and turned it around in his hands, studying the blade. When he had finished, he handed it to me and took his own back.

He raised his weapon.

"Wait, what?" I asked. "You're just going to throw me into a battle without, like, training or anything?"

"Fastest way to learn is from experience. Plus, you've fought with swords thousands of times before."

"Yeah, but I don't remember it."

"Your muscles do." When I shot him a questioning look, his gaze trailed elsewhere as he slowly said, "it's a study on Earth that I was reading about. It's called muscle memory, and it's basically where if you do something so frequently, your muscles can repeat the task without you even having to think about it. I mean, it might not work, but I just want to try it I guess."

I smiled at how cautious he sounded as he said it, as if he were embarrassed just to know it. "You're such a dork."

"You mean that in a good way, yes?"

"Maybe."

"I'll show you what this dork can do with a sword." Thomas raised his weapon once more. "I'll put protection spells on us, if you want."

I raised the sword in my hands. Some strange part of me deep inside was put at ease with the weapon. It fit perfectly in my hand like a part of me that had been missing. 

"Ready?"

I nodded.

The sound of metal clanging against metal bounced through the clearing, echoing louder and louder as the fight continued. I felt stronger, more powerful with every slice and stroke of the sword.

It was easy to tell that Thomas was enjoying himself and probably even showing off a little. He'd obviously been doing this a lot longer than I had, so I was surprised that I lasted as long as I did. Each blow was intended, calculated.

Our swords clashed against each other in a rhythmic way. Despite the strange yet empowering feeling of completeness, it didn't take long for Thomas to disarm me. But even as he bent down to pick up the sword that hit the soft grass with a bounce, his smile was one of pride.

"Not bad for your first duel!"

I wanted to beam at Thomas' praise, but I bit it back in an attempt to seem calm and collected. "I don't know how or where I learned to do that, but that was awesome." So much for calm and collected.

"See? Muscle memory."

I frowned. I think it was a bit more than that. It had felt so natural, like speaking in another language. Maybe I did remember something about who I was. And if I did, maybe I could remember everything else.

"Sword fighting will teach you the focus you need for magic," Thomas explained, though I was hardly listening. I was more concerned about my hypothesis.

"Is there anyway you can read someone's minds?" I interrupted.

Thomas frowned, upset at my interruption. "Yeah. Eliza's really good at reading minds. Why do you ask?"

"Do you think she could read my mind and find my memories?"

"Alexander, that's the exact thing I didn't want to happen."

"Yeah, but think about it for a second! If my memories are there, and someone can access them, then why shouldn't we at least try?"

"Because the risk far outweighs the prize." His outright dismissal of my idea destroyed any positive feelings I had from earlier.

"Thomas!"

"Alexander!" he returned, trying for the same serious tone and failing miserably.

I couldn't keep the ice in my glare and cracked a little. Thomas' smile widened when he saw mine, and he held out his hand.

"Wanna try once more to grow the plant?"

I cast a glance over at the small pathetic green thing that had been crushed during our sword practice. "No."

"You're going to have to eventually, Alex." Thomas sighed, but the smile didn't vanish from his face.

"Yeah, well, I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. Anyway, it's getting hot out here." To emphasize this, I wiped the sweat away from my forehead.

"I have some books you can read to help with your spellcasting if you want."

"That would be great!"

Thomas whistled and held out his hand, the noise cutting through the air. Amica left his post from one of the branches hanging above the clearing and landed on Thomas' outstretched finger in a storm of wings.

"C'mon, let's start heading back before we die of heat exhaustion."

Even though I doubted Thomas wanted me to chase after this idea anymore, I couldn't get the concept of regaining my memories out of my head.