The wand body lay on the workbench, waiting.
Abel had spent the entire night engraving the magical patterns—delicate lines that would form the magical circuitry, the equivalent of the human nervous system but designed to channel and direct magical energy. Ancient symbols connected by flowing lines, each one a synapse point where magic could pause, be shaped, be amplified or diminished.
His hands moved with the precision of someone who'd done this a hundred times before, except he never had. This was new territory. In six years of attempts, he'd never gotten this far. The wood had always resisted, remained stubbornly inert, refused to accept the magical imprinting no matter how carefully he worked.
But this pine wood was different.
As the final magical pattern took shape under his careful knife work, Abel felt something shift. Not physically—the wand body remained still on the workbench—but spiritually, magically. The wood seemed to... respond. To breathe. To acknowledge his presence with a faint resonance that echoed against his own magical core.
Abel set down his tools with shaking hands.
He picked up the wand body—13.5 inches, perfectly straight, tapering smoothly from one end to the other. He held it gently, the way one might hold something made of spun glass, and waved it slowly through the air.
Magic flowed into it without resistance.
For the first time in six years, magic channeled through a wand he'd created himself with no stuttering, no hesitation, no feeling of pushing water uphill. The magic simply went, following the pathways he'd carved, amplified by the wood, returned to his hand with a subtle vibration that felt like standing next to something alive.
It worked.
Abel's breath came in short, almost panicked gasps. After years of attempts, after more than ten failed wand bodies, after countless hours of meticulous carving and engraving and careful technique—it had worked.
He immediately retrieved the oil he'd prepared months ago. Seven bottles, each containing a different essence—oils and resins combined with careful intent, designed to seal the magical patterns and allow the wood to mature into its full potential. He mixed them in a large bowl, then carefully coated the entire surface of the wand body, watching as the liquid seeped into the wood and disappeared, becoming part of the material itself.
When he finally finished, the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. He'd worked through the entire night without noticing the passage of time.
Theresa was still asleep when Abel finished. She didn't eat breakfast anyway—she preferred to spend her mornings sleeping in after her late restaurant shifts. So he prepared a quick breakfast for himself, ate mechanically, washed the dishes, changed his clothes, and went out.
His first stop was the mailbox. There was a package waiting—the materials he'd ordered weeks ago for attempting the wand core. Owl feathers, crow feathers, raven feathers. The hair from a pure white horse, dyed pure white by nature itself, which supposedly held magical properties. Three specimens of nerve tissue from lizards and snakes.
None of it would work. He already knew that. But he had to try.
By afternoon, he had his answer.
The owl feather crumbled to ash the moment he tried to impregnate it with magical energy. The crow feather resisted entirely, as if the magic was water and the feather was oil. The raven feather caught fire—blue smoke rising from it, an acrid burnt smell filling his room—before he could even complete the binding process.
The horse hair dissolved into nothing.
The lizard nerve tissue sparked and died.
The snake nerve tissue burned exactly like the raven feather, filling the room with that same terrible blue smoke.
Abel sat in his chair, surrounded by the failures, and faced a hard truth: the materials of this world simply wouldn't work as wand cores. Phoenix feathers and dragon heartstrings existed in a magical reality that this world didn't possess. The animals here had no magical resonance, no supernatural essence. They were just materials—matter without the spark.
He could contact Kama Taj. The Ancient One would certainly have answers. She probably had supplies that would work. But that meant revealing himself to the guardians of the magical world, and Abel wasn't confident in his ability to survive that revelation. The Ancient One was powerful beyond measure. If she decided he was a threat, there was nothing he could do to stop her.
No. Not yet. He would try other combinations first. Other bird species. Other animals. There had to be something in this world that carried enough magical resonance to serve as a core.
He opened eBay and Amazon and began adding items to his cart. Feathers from hawks and eagles and albatrosses. Hair from white horses and pure white dogs. Nerve tissue from more species of reptiles. The cost was climbing—his pocket money was stretched dangerously thin.
He'd need to work more hours at the cafe.
The cafe was two blocks away from the apartment, a small place that served coffee and pastries to the surrounding neighborhood. Abel arrived at 3:45 PM, changed into his work clothes, and took his position at the counter.
The owner had hired him months ago, impressed by his appearance and demeanor. He was tall for his age, handsome in a way that made customers comfortable and conversational. The work was simple: take orders, prepare drinks, manage the register, maintain the space. It required minimal thinking and left his mind free to calculate costs and plan his next experiments.
He worked Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 PM to 10 PM. Saturdays from 1 PM to 7 PM. Six hours each day, which meant money for supplies, though never quite enough.
Theresa had objected at first. She felt he was working too hard, that he should focus on school, that teenage boys shouldn't be spending their evenings making coffee for strangers. But Abel had insisted, and eventually she'd accepted it. She usually waited for him in her car on Tuesday and Thursday nights, taking him home when his shift ended, a silent show of maternal concern.
The afternoon crowd trickled in and out. Abel served them with the kind of efficiency that came from doing something repeatedly until it became automatic. His hands knew what to do. His mind remained elsewhere.
Then the cafe's television caught his attention.
A news broadcast was running, and the banner across the bottom mentioned an award ceremony. Abel didn't pay much attention at first—he was making a cappuccino—but the image on screen caught him.
Tony Stark. The Apogee Award. Las Vegas. Caesars Palace.
An award ceremony that had happened 36 hours earlier, apparently. Tony Stark accepting recognition for his achievements, his company, his contributions to American technological advancement. The broadcast showed him being presented with the award, looking self-satisfied and brilliant in the way that only Tony Stark could manage.
Abel filed the information away. The Apogee Award existed. Tony Stark received it. This would be relevant to the timeline, to understanding the MCU events that were supposedly occurring in this reality.
Then he returned to making coffee.
At 7 PM, he handed over his station to the night shift worker, changed back into his regular clothes, and headed home.
Theresa was in the kitchen when he arrived, preparing something that smelled complex—spices he recognized, chicken he could smell being cooked. But what caught his attention immediately was the sight of three place settings on the table.
Three.
Abel had only two place settings ever been arranged on that table. His and Theresa's. Three meant a guest. Three meant someone he didn't know was in their home.
The knock on the door came almost immediately after he set down his bag.
Theresa moved quickly, answering with a smile that suggested she'd been expecting this moment. "Abel dear, guess who's here?"
"Mom, I could guess the White House before I figured this out. Should we let them in?"
"Of course."
END CHAPTER 7