Read an Excerpt From Of Sorcery and Science by Mike Chen

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Read an Excerpt From Of Sorcery and Science by Mike Chen

A teen who is The Chosen One in a fantasy realm finds himself a nobody back home—until magic appears in the real world…

Published on August 25, 2026

Cover of Of Sorcery and Science by Mike Chen.

We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Of Sorcery and Science by Mike Chen, a new young adult fantasy novel out from Running Press Kids on September 8th.

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Of Sorcery and Science

Mike Chen

Of Sorcery and Science

Mike Chen

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On most days, I turned left on Stinson Street, then pulled my mid-2000s Honda Civic into the second driveway to get to the student parking lot at Westerberg High.

Today, I made that turn on Stinson. But then I kept going—all the way to the end of the block, where the street was empty. Or mostly empty; a few students walked on the sidewalk, trudging toward campus as though drawn by a magnet. I was able to park just far enough from a “No school parking” sign that I might get some plausible deniability.

Although, I supposed if I got in trouble, I could magic my way out of it.

Because today, I brought mana with me. My only ball of mana, the thing I’d hidden in my closet for three months, was tucked safely in a jar and hidden under a blue hoodie, though the glowing bits of blue still shone between the threads. While the mana itself was the size of a tennis ball, the only jar I could find was for jumbo olives from Costco. Which meant that it didn’t fit in my backpack.

So I parked down the block. Then I very carefully took it out from my backseat, the hoodie still on top of it, and walked to school, though not toward the main entrance where everyone usually went. Instead, I marched quickly through the unkempt athletic fields, stumbling only once over a deep divot that kicked dirt all over my shoe. And right on the edge of the PE blacktop, I paused.

If everyone was going to associate me with Garriod, then I’d put on a real show to wow them.

I knelt, backpack in front of me. And behind that was the jar, still covered. I reached under the hoodie, gripped the metal lid, and unscrewed it. The wind kicked up, blowing my hair all around and making me thankful that I’d picked a hoodie to hide things rather than extra jeans. At least I could put this on later if it started raining.

Still kneeling, I grabbed the mana with my right hand, the familiar tingling of magical energy tickling my palm. It flashed, then started to absorb into my skin, and for a moment, I didn’t care who saw this. It was real and it mattered. It deserved to be witnessed. Weren’t we always talking about how the truth mattered? And here was an authentic example of that.

The mana shrank into my palm, causing the tips of my fingers to briefly surge with a blue glow that wrapped over my knuckles and wrist. Then just like that, it was gone, and my hand looked normal.

But it felt much different. Heavier, yet floating; hotter, yet a little numb. I once tried explaining it to Rich, but their only reply was: “You’re just spouting contradictions to make yourself sound impressive.”

Maybe I was. I didn’t know how else to sum it all up.

But I did know how to test it.

I closed my eyes, focusing my intentions on the mana coursing through my hand. My voice lowered to a hush, and my fingers curled into a tight fist. “Sham inava tare lordbrit,” I said, and then flicked my hand open.

At first, everything seemed the same: the buildings, the long outdoor hallways leading to the PE locker rooms and rows of classrooms, the huge field used for soccer and track, the trees on the other side of the field.

But then the details came to life. Way above me, birds paused midflight. The wind itself stopped, and as I angled my view to scope out the campus’s central courtyard, all the crisscrossing students froze in place.

I’d stopped time.

Not metaphorically, like in songs, but really and literally. I’d absorbed mana, said the words, did the gesture, and froze everything around me. I never knew if the physics of this meant that I moved super-fast or if I truly froze everything. Probably the first one, because if it were the second, that brought up all sorts of other questions, like whether that extended to the entire planet, the moon, and even to aliens in distant galaxies.

I began a slow march through the campus halls, weaving in and out of crowds. I went up to the school’s most obnoxious bully and waved a middle finger in his face. I jumped in and out of the space where the moody emo gang sat in a huddle.

I ducked into the nearest open classroom—Mr. Nguyen’s chemistry class. A test of magic didn’t get any more high stakes than breaking into my teacher’s stuff. Not something I would normally do, but I really needed to know this worked. I opened the drawer of his desk to find emergency contact sheets. Mr. Nguyen just sat there unmoved, dry-erase marker in hand, clearly in the process of underlining the word “hypothesis” in the phrase “a good hypothesis.”

Magic was part of my everyday life in Garriod. I’d trained to use magic; I’d worked with other mages; I’d completed the trials and even created new trials for other mages. I’d cast a Magic Missile straight into the gaping mouth of a giant shadow scorpion. I was the freakin’ Chosen One of Garriod, and yet seeing all the phones and students and cars and coffee of my world trapped in time…

It almost felt more amazing than leading a charge on the Cliffs of Mondain.

I left Mr. Nguyen’s room. One final test came to mind before I’d get to the real show, and I bent down to pick up a rock from the planter box in the middle of the hall. I held it up at shoulder height, then opened my hand to let it go.

The rock floated right where I left it.

I walked in a complete circle around the hovering bit of stone, then knelt to leave it right at my eye level and leaned in.

I shut my eyes and whispered, “Tare lordbrit sham inava” with a flick of my wrist.

Sounds whipped into my ears from all directions: footsteps, voices, phone chimes, laughs, all the noise that came with a high school a few minutes before the day began.

Also, the sound of a rock hitting the ground, a deep tap followed by a few quick clicks as it settled into place.

Then something pulled on my backpack. Hard. I torqued backward as the straps dug into my shoulders, and my arms flung out to catch my balance.

I looked up to see Westerberg’s resident jerk face named James, his arms up with a prime scowl on his face after bumping past me. “Watch where you’re going,” he said.

Normally, this kind of thing would bring up all sorts of bitterness, anger, and irritation. But as I stood there watching one of the school’s known bullies walk away, none of those feelings arrived. Instead, a strange bubbling rippled through my body, a giddiness at what just happened.

Because I’d stopped time and moved from the back PE area to right here in this hallway, where James collided with my backpack. Whether he had pulled on it or it really was an accident, that didn’t matter.

The only thing that mattered was I had undeniable proof that my magic worked. And now, I could put my plan into action.

* * *

The next few hours crawled by. Avogadro’s number and sines and cosines and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible… who really cared because it was all just a countdown to the real show. The snickering and comments still trailed me, but not as much as the day before, and I probably could have let the whole thing drop. In a week, no one would have remembered it anyway.

But I was determined. The seconds counted down during the last few drips of fifth-period English, and then the obnoxious buzzer rang out over the school’s speakers, releasing

everyone to the freedom of lunch.

For most of my time at Westerberg, I’d spent lunch with the same group of friends: Nico, Seth, Gwen, and others who still did the LARP club. Our group had some kids come and go, though without Rich, everything kind of fell apart. And after Garriod, I found myself more often just sitting under a tree and disappearing into one of the comic books loaded on my phone at lunchtime. Sometimes I had a video call with Rich, who was all the way out in Boston.

Sometimes I just thought about Garriod.

Today, though, I walked past the lunch group. Nico and Gwen looked up and waved, a usual invitation to join them, but I only offered a quick nod of acknowledgment. “I got something to do,” I said before heading to the cafeteria and planting myself a good ten feet in front of the doors. This was perfect. A nice, central location to wow everyone.

I closed my eyes and flexed my fingers, feeling the mana rippling through. Someone said something about the video. Someone else asked, “Why’s he just standing there?” I pushed all that aside and concentrated.

“Gar gostyg abyss,” I said under my breath, an intention to each syllable.

Then I felt it.

First, a tingle that started in my right hand—the hand where the mana was absorbed and my primary casting hand. The tingle grew into a heat, like putting your hand into an almost-too-hot bath. From there I repeated the words, rubbing my hands together to spread the magical energy. Soon my palms burned, my nails ached, and the rhythm of the moment took over, my low whisper becoming louder and louder.

“Gar gostyg abyss,” I said, ramping up the charge of it all, and I could practically see it even with my eyes closed: a whirl of sparkling colors swirling around my hands.

All I had to do was launch it.

“Color!” I yelled and threw my hands up. I opened my eyes and… Nothing.

Well, not nothing. There were a lot of my classmates staring at me. Some of them were laughing. Some of them looked confused. A few of them were filming on their phones.

No colors whirled out of my fingers. Instead, my nails briefly flashed, like I’d painted them a sparkly color and the light caught it at the right angle. Of course, you needed to be close to see it. I saw it. Plus, I knew what it was.

But no one was within ten feet of me. And no one knew what to look for.

“Is all of this, like, performance art?” a girl asked.

“I dunno,” her friend said, “did you see his video?”

“Color,” I said again, though the words no longer felt powerful or cool. Now I just sounded desperate. Or even worse, I sounded weird.

At the edge of the group, Nico and Gwen came closer. First they looked at me, then at each other, and then at me again.

My nails and fingertips flourished, a flash of blink-and-you-miss-it color that came and went. And with it, I knew…

All the mana was gone.

I’d waited too long. Or used too much of it during the time stop. Or both. It didn’t matter because now I’d taken yesterday’s situation, the thing that I could have just let go of, and made it ten times worse. Maybe even twenty times. I’d probably know if I was better at trig.

I glanced up and my cheeks burned as I caught Gwen saying something to Nico.

“Thanks!” I yelled, trying the first thing I could think of to play this off. “You’ve been a great audience.”

And without waiting for a reaction, I stormed off. Not just to my locker or my next class—I headed straight out the exit.

Forget truancy, forget responsibility. I just needed to disappear.

Possibly forever.

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