Thirteen-year-old Maggie understands why she isn't allowed to eat all weekend, but she doesn't have to like it. Weekends are for pancakes and having fun, not eating nothing and being exhausted. But if she comes out of this with magic powers it will be worth it. She wants to be a mage and learn to change people's bodies and heal and whatever it is about her own body that feels wrong.

Most kids going through this thought process end up disappointed. Maggie does not. When the Eclipse hits, she can feel it, magic flowing through her and around her, lighting up her mind. "Mom! Dad! Mom Dad I'm a psion!!!" All thoughts of being a mage are instantly forgotten. She has magic.

Control training is both easier and harder on her than average. She doesn't mind the long hours and days of disconnection from her body, doing uncontrolled and then poorly-controlled and then well-controlled magic in a virtual world. She hates the mandatory exercise breaks, trying to get reaccustomed over and over to atrophied muscles and ill-suited joints and the need to use the bathroom. When she comes out of it at 15 she's as clumsy as a newborn deer, and never quite masters keeping track of her own elbows.

Thirteen-year-old Maggie understands why she isn't allowed to eat all weekend, but she doesn't have to like it. Weekends are for pancakes and having fun, not eating nothing and being exhausted. But if she comes out of this with magic powers it will be worth it. She wants to be a mage and learn to change people's bodies and heal and whatever it is about her own body that feels wrong.

Most kids going through this thought process end up disappointed. Maggie does not. When the Eclipse hits, she can feel it, magic flowing through her and around her, lighting up her mind. "Mom! Dad! Mom Dad I'm a psion!!!" All thoughts of being a mage are instantly forgotten. She has magic. Her parents are surprised and proud and one hundred percent behind her ambition to go to training instead of being locked down.

Control training is both easier and harder on her than average. She doesn't mind the long hours and days of disconnection from her body, learning to control her magic in a virtual world. She hates the mandatory exercise breaks, trying to get reaccustomed over and over to atrophied muscles and ill-suited joints and the need to use the bathroom. When she comes out of it at 15 she's as clumsy as a newborn deer, and never quite masters keeping track of her own elbows. But she can connect her brain to a calculator and make it handle real numbers instead of bits and bytes, and she has the beginnings of a mindscape she'll eventually be able to use to test other things. She's gone from "destructive potential" to just "potential". Now it's time for her to go to high school.