Black Amber

**Black amber** is a type of amber that is one of the most powerful, magical substances in the world, described by Mel Vera as "the lifeblood of magic". There is an upside-down tree that naturally produces black amber hidden within the Command Center, located underneath the area, with its roots growing high enough to poke through areas in the Center.

The amber is often used in the making of jewelry, such as the Chase family ring. The substance has also been used for creating Whitelighters.

## History

In "*Deconstructing Harry*", while shaking hands with Jordan Chase, Maggie Vera had a vision of the future involving Jordan telling someone that he loves them. He is later revealed to have been talking to his girlfriend, Lola when Maggie's foreseen event comes true.

While holding Jordan's hand during a karaoke duet in "*When Sparks Fly*", Maggie tried to force a vision in order to locate Macy Vaughn, however, she was only able to get fragments. After being trapped in an elevator with a Jordan, she was able to psychically locate her sister by holding Jordan's hand. Realizing that the power came from Jordan's family ring and that the ring contained black amber, Maggie talked Jordan into letting her hold and try on the ring. She then had another vision of the future involving Jordan being in danger or getting hurt.

In "*Past is Present*", Maggie stole Jordan's sport wristband containing his sweat residue as required for a spell that would reveal what type of magic was present in him. It revealed that he was cursed by the dying breath of a witch. Later, after Harry Greenwood cloned Jordan's family ring and stole the original, Macy performed a spell to reveal the most significant moment of the ring's history. It revealed that Lawrence Mortimer Chase, also known as the Witchfinder General and an ancestor of Jordan's, was cursed by an unnamed witch just before she was burned at the stake along with the rest of her coven. The curse seemingly caused all of the males in the Chase family to pass away before their 26th birthday.

When Mel Vera returned to the Command Center after being kicked out of Maggie's wedding to Parker Caine in "*The Rules of Engagement*", she found roots growing out of a pillar. After picking at the stone and snapping off part of the root, Mel found black sap leaking out of it. Believing the roots to be those of an upside-down tree after checking the Book of Elders, Mel figured that the sap must be black amber, which will allow her to reawaken her powers over time. However, when she attempted to freeze a bunch of pens in the air, nothing happened.

Macy, Maggie, and Harry returned to the Command Center a short while later, after Abigael Jameson-Caine helped them escape from the wedding after Parker had gone mad from eating too many fruits from the Sacred Grove, and found Mel clearing up the mess she had made. Mel and Maggie apologized to each other for how they acted that day and Harry found the roots. Mel explained she thought it was black amber, but her powers didn't return. Maggie placed a finger in the sap leaking out and had a vision of Parker killing Jordan.

The four rushed to Jordan's gym in SafeSpace to prevent Maggie's vision from coming true, and when Mel, out of instinct, made to freeze Parker before he could approach her and her sisters, she instead caused ice to encase Parker, revealing that the black amber had in fact awoken a new power in her, which Harry stated was Molecular Manipulation.

Since the amber had allowed Mel and Maggie to gain new powers, Macy and Harry experimented with it in "*Guess Who's Coming to SafeSpace Seattle*" to try and either awaken a new power in Macy or help her regain her original power of telekinesis. However, in each experiment, the black amber appeared to have no effect on her, despite Macy's multiple attempts, even going as far as to consume some of the black amber just to try and have it work.

In "*Curse Words*", black market traders associated with Ray Vera would eventually come into contact with the substance, when he handed a vial to Nadia. Upon testing the substance, they found that the black amber was capable of bringing a rabbit back from the dead.

In "*Dance Like No One is Witching*", a shaman used black amber, alongside his staff and Darklighter poison, to resurrect the corpse of an unknown man, stealing the life-force of many patrons at a party in the process. The ritual was interrupted by Maggie, but was still successful in reviving the man.

In "*Needs to Know*", after having Abigael help her remove her demonic powers, Macy tried once again to use the amber to regain her witch powers, but they still refused to show, much to Macy's growing frustration.

When told of the dangers the Power of Three possesses, and agreeing with her sisters to find a way to prevent it from happening to them in "*Breaking the Cycle*", Macy drank from a chalice containing pure black amber underneath the Command Center. This time, the amber restored Macy's power of telekinesis, and advanced it, allowing Macy to perform astonishing feats.

Running low on black amber, the Faction, led by Vivienne Laurent and Julian Shea, closed down SafeSpace to the public, and began trying to find the Command Center in "*Unsafe Space*". At the same time, in need of finding a way inside the Center without getting caught, the Vera-Vaughn Charmed Ones, with the help of retired Elder Celeste, found a witch who went through witchness protection, Ruby, Mel's girlfriend, who Mel managed to convince to give them a black amber marble that can create a portal back to the Command Center.

Mel's use of Ruby's marble led to complications, resulting in Maggie and Macy becoming trapped in the marble, as it can only be used by the witch it was given to. Mel again had to plead for Ruby to help, despite her reluctance to return to magic. Ruby eventually agreed, and used the marble to open the portal, sending her, Mel, Celeste, and Harry to the Command Center, and freeing Maggie and Macy.

Encountering many roadblocks in their search for the Center, including a wall that magically repaired every time they tried to drill into it, Vivienne pleaded to her nephew to find Macy and get her to reveal the Command Center. Julian initially refused, so Vivienne relented to reveal to him his sister, Rosemary, was alive, but comatose. She then showed him that, with the use of black amber, Rosemary could be awoken for brief moments of time, stating she got the idea of reviving dead brain cells from resurrecting corpses. Seeing his sister alive, and knowing they need more black amber, Julian agreed to find Macy.

However, in "*An Inconvenient Truth*", it was later revealed by Macy that black amber is unable to cure humans, and it was through another substance that Vivienne temporarily revived Rosemary, in order to manipulate Julian into helping her. This revelation, that his aunt was using him by turning his hopes of reviving Rosemary against him, made Julian decide to help the Charmed Ones.

Vivienne, however, was already moving on to her next phase, and in "*Someone's Going to Die*", she demonstrated the use of a prism glove, powered by black amber, that allowed her to use the magical powers of various magical beings, as well a siphon their magic. However, she stated she only had enough black amber to power one glove, but knew where she could find more.

Meanwhile, the Charmed Ones, working off a vision Maggie received of somebody dying, went down to the Tree Room in the Command Center to ask the Guardian, a former Charmed One, for help. The Guardian explained that humans have always sought to gain magic, and if one human were to touch the pure black amber in the chamber, it would poison the magical world. Mel suggested that they would seal the chamber with a powerful spell, preventing anyone from reaching the black amber, but the Guardian stated the spell was so powerful because it was permanent, and doing so would cut off access to everything, meaning the black amber that powered the Command Center would cease, the witch board would go dark, and they would not be able to seek the Guardian’s guidance. The Charmed Ones agreed to use the spell as a last resort.

Their efforts to stop Vivienne’s plans, however, were quickly thwarted when Vivienne used the powers in her Prism Glove to find her way into the Command Center, performing a Mind-Meld on Macy to find the location, before blasting the door open, and knocking out the Charmed Ones and Harry. Vivienne then made her way to the Tree, and placed her hand in the pool of black amber, poisoning it.

Even though the Charmed Ones managed to vanquish Vivienne by using the Power of Three, the damage had been done. Across the world, every dot on the witch board was red, as was every dot when put into demon mode. And when Macy, Mel, and Maggie looked at the Tree, they found its leaves were turning to ash, and the black amber had turned a dark green. Magic was poisoned, and every magical being was dying because of it.

In "*Triage*", the Charmed Ones risk their lives to save magic by putting the pendant containing the Source into the basin containing pure black amber to save the magical community.

In "*I Dreamed a Dream…*", Celeste drew the infinity symbol with black amber on Harry's chest in order to perform the Whitelighter Resurrection Ritual on him.

After Inara remade the world to her desires and stripped the Vera-Danso Charmed Ones of their powers in "*Be Kind. Rewind.*", Mel, Maggie, and Kaela Danso worked out a plan to sneak into the Command Center and reach the Black Amber Tree. Although they encounted some difficulty, including Jordan being captured and tortured by Inara, the three sisters managed to reach the Tree Room, where they drank from the pure black amber pooling in the basin beneath the tree, which restored their powers and the Power of Three.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Power Granting:** Black amber has also been shown to have the ability to grant powers. Through contact with Jordan Chase's family ring, Maggie Vera's ability to foresee the future was awakened, and after finding the black amber tree in the Command Center and dipping her fingers into the sap, Mel Vera gained her new ability to manipulate molecules. These new powers are able to be sustained without maintaining contact with black amber. After drinking from the chalice of pure black amber from the room containing the black amber tree beneath the Command Center, Macy's telekinesis was reawaken in a more advanced form.
* **Resurrection:** Black amber had shown some ability to bring the deceased back to life, though the exact extent of this is currently unclear. A group of mortals, known as the Faction, who know of the existence of magic were able to resurrect a dead rabbit by pumping black amber through an IV into the animal. When combined with Darklighter poison and a large number of collected life forces from other living beings, a shaman was able to perform a ritual to resurrect a dead man with black amber at the orders of the Faction. It could also be assumed that black amber was somehow used in the revival and creation of the Faction's two magic-infused corpses. However, Macy later states that black amber is unable to resurrect others with the substance proving ineffective at reviving Rosemary Shea. Black amber is also used as a component of the ritual to resurrect deceased mortals as Whitelighters.

## Trivia

* While it's called *black amber*, this substance has been described and shown mostly as a sap, rather than a resin, as amber is a substance that has been fossilized throughout millions of years. The sap is considered to be the equivalent of blood to a tree, which is a more watery substance, while the resin is a substance that is produced in time, only if the tree has been wounded, and it has a hard, gum-like texture.
	+ Since amber is not normally made by sap, this may be different because it comes from a magical tree, and its sap might be capable of hardening to resemble real amber.
* In "*An Inconvenient Truth*", Macy reveals that black amber is unable to revive the dead, and it proves unsuccessful at reviving Rosemary Shea. However, black amber is shown being used by the Faction prior to this on several occasions to resurrect deceased beings. It was apparently able to resurrect a dead rabbit and was obviously part of their experiments at resurrecting corpses and imbuing them with stolen magic. Also, in "*I Dreamed a Dream…*", black amber was subsequently revealed to be part of the process of resurrecting deceased mortals as Whitelighters.

## See Also

* Advanced Telekinesis
* Molecular Manipulation
* Foresight
* Whitelighter Resurrection Ritual