We walk for a while longer, and manage to have fairly light-hearted conversation. Before we know it it’s mid-afternoon, and we wander down to the café. I persuade Edward to let me pay for my own hot chocolate and muffin without too much difficulty. It’s more expensive than I’d like, but it’s not as if there’s a vast range of other places to get snacks nearby.
I was expecting it to be quiet, with so many students gone for the holidays. But while there are only a handful of students here, the Academy’s research staff are still at work and still in need of drinks and snacks. I feel slightly out of place among this group of customers.
Somehow the conversation has turned to Edward giving me recommendations for extra studying I should do over the break. I feel as if I should be taking notes. But I (hopefully) remember enough about oracles to tell Elsie; my mind should have space for a little more information.
Edward thinks I should focus more on theoretical study; he continues to argue that the way we’re taught here neglects far too much important theory and he wants to make sure that I at least know that theory. I suspect that a more theoretical method of teaching would in fact be worse for most of the class, but I’ve long since given up trying to argue that sort of point with Edward.
And personally I do like to have the theoretical understanding where possible, so I take his advice seriously. It’s a pity that the Academy doesn’t let students at our level take library books home for the holidays, though I can understand why given the rarity of some of its collection.
That reminds me that I still need to return the history books I have out at the moment, and that given how early I’ll have to leave tomorrow morning it has to be done today. Edward readily agrees to let me go back and do that. His cousin Rosie is on duty today, apparently, and he’s been meaning to talk to her for a while.
It’s easy sometimes to think Edward’s family is just him and his father, but that reminds me that he has more relations than that even discounting his mother. “Don’t they want to see you for Holy Days?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Not enough that they’d turn down invitations to the Feast of Stars for my sake.”
Turning down an invitation to the Feast of Stars isn’t something you can do lightly, even if you don’t want to go. It’s seen as an insult to the King, and you don’t insult the King and expect there to not be severe consequences. So I can understand their decision.
“But surely when Rosie was younger – “
Edward shakes his head. “She’s gone every year since she was… eight, I think? When it comes to children it’s their guardians’ choice whether or not they go.”
“You’re not a child this year, though.”
“I don’t have a title in my own right, yet, which means I don’t merit an invitation.”
“And Rosie does?”
“No,” says Edward. “I’m pretty sure my dad asked the King to not invite me as a favour.”
I can’t help laughing. “Only your father would ask the King for that sort of favour.”
He laughs too. “I suppose it is a little unusual. But then we’ve always been an unusual family.”
That is quite the understatement.
We finish our drinks and cakes and stroll back to the Academy. It’s already beginning to grow dark, not that that should surprise me: it’s the darkest month of the year, with the solstice only a week or two away.
“Library?” Edward asks as we step inside and wipe the mud off our boots.
“Library,” I agree. “Via my dormitory to fetch the books in question.”
Edward waits outside while I go in to fetch the books. This time, Robin is there. I was prepared to snatch a few words before, but I’m not now.
She’s staring out of the window, leaning on the sill, but she turns her head as she sees me come in. “Tallulah,” she says.
“Robin. I – “
The books are exactly where I left them, sitting on top of my trunk. It would take me less than twenty seconds to pick them up and leave. Edward knows that. And he knows that with Hannah, Aisha and Lucy all home for the holidays already there’s only one person I could be talking to in here.
I’ll have another chance this evening, when we can have a proper conversation. When I know what I want to say to her.
I pick up the books. “I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t reply.
I turn and leave. Less than twenty seconds. Stars. I hate myself.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
If Edward notices Robin or wonders if I saw her, he says nothing about it. We walk the rest of the way to the library in companionable silence.
Rosie is in fact on duty, and she smiles when she sees us. It’s probably more for her cousin than for me, but I still appreciate it.
“I’d like to return these,” I say, setting my stack of books down on the table with regret. I have finished them all, but giving up books is never fun. Especially when I know I can’t just get a whole new stack to replace them. Well, I could, but I’d have no more than a few hours to read them.
“Certainly. Are you both going home for the holidays?”
I nod. “Tomorrow.”
“Stop pretending you don’t have my movements memorised.”
Rosie laughs. “It’s called making polite conversation.”
“Oh, is that what it is?” Edward asks flatly. “I never would have guessed.”
“I suppose with a role model like your father, you couldn’t be expected to know.”
I have to choke back a laugh.
Edward makes no attempt to defend his father’s honour, instead changing the subject. “Well, since I don’t in fact have your movements memorised… plans for Holy Days? Other than the Feast, I suppose?”
“I’ll be sticking around here, I suppose. Even during the Feast I have permission to come and take the readings I need – it has to be every single day for the data to be useful.”
Rosie is researching hyperspace, I recall. And what better place to do it than in one of the country’s best magical research institutions which also happens to contain a hyperspace library?
“Well,” Edward says. “If you get some time when you’re not doing that, I happen to know a manor that’ll be largely unoccupied and someone living there who’d want company…”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’ll come and visit you at some point. You’re not going to die of boredom, don’t worry.”
“Thanks. How’s the research going?”
If I’d asked something like that I’d be hoping for a “very well, thank you” or a half-hearted complaint about some obstacle encountered along the way. Edward is different, though, and Rosie knows it. I’m lost within her first two sentences.
And by the time they’ve been discussing the intricacies of hyperspace for a minute or two, I’m feeling distinctly out of place. Would he even notice if I left him to it? It feels wrong being this close to a library and not going in. I could just look, even though I can’t get anything…
“Tallulah,” says Edward.
I notice I’ve taken several steps across the room towards the library door. And that he hasn’t forgotten my presence; of course he hasn’t.
“You know what’s going to happen if you step inside that room, don’t you?”
The way he phrases that seems like a threat, though of course it logically can’t be. “What?”
“You’ll find that it’s half an hour later and you have a pile of half a dozen books, none of which you have time to check out and finish. There’s no point, Tallulah. The library will still be here after Holy Days.”
I glare at him. But he does raise a good point. “I may have to get out of here to avoid the temptation, in that case.”
“You can just say you’re bored by our technical discussion. I don’t mind. Unless Rosie does?”
Rosie gives me a playful glare. “No. Not at all.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “Sorry.”
With their permission, I make my escape. Edward promises to find me in our usual study room when he’s done talking about hyperspace, so I go straight there. And realise that I don’t have anything to study. I don’t even have the Malaina papers with me.
But I’m a magician, and anything can be a tool for a magician to practice with.
When Edward arrives five minutes later, I’m trying to write by moving my quill through magic instead of physically touching it. It’s not going particularly well; my eight-year-old self would be ashamed of the untidy scrawl I’m producing. But I’m still bizarrely proud of my work. It’s like I’m learning to write for the first time all over again.
“I’ve never actually tried that,” he says. “But you’re doing well.”
“Really?” I ask, sceptical.
“Yes,” he insists. “How many times do I have to tell you, Tallulah?”
“I bet you’d get it perfect first time.”
“With Siaril, sure. But Malaina would be harder, I think.”
I still feel jealous of him being multi-School. If Malaina isn’t suited to whatever he’s trying to do, then unlike me he can just switch to Siaril and do it with far more ease. “Prove it,” I say.
And that ends up being how we spend the next few hours, give or take a break for food: playing around with various forms of magic. It takes Edward less than ten minutes to have nearly flawless handwriting with a levitated quill, and me considerably longer. Even when I finally have it working, I’m pretty sure that coming close to losing control would ruin it.
“This is a good exercise, actually,” Edward says. “I’ll have to practice with it some more for refining precision and control.”
And he shows me a few of his own exercises, mostly other applications of the General Animation Spell. A particularly tricky one is trying to make a marble balance on the edge of the table, just past the point at which it would fall without the spell. And then trying to use magic to catch it as it rolls towards the edge. Even he struggles with that sometimes, at least when casting using Malaina.
I fare better than I expected, though. I understand the basic principles of these sorts of things by now. It’s not something that can be done by pure willpower; it needs calm and focus and absolute confidence. That’s the state of mind you need for a lot of magic, I’ve learnt.
It’s just the anomalous sort that’s different.
I hate the feeling that there’s nothing I can do about working out what the anomaly is and what it means for the future. I’d like to at least be able to prepare properly for the inevitable next disaster to come my way.
Not now, though. This is my last evening here, and it’s for enjoying the fact that I’m a magician and I have an amazing best friend. And that whatever bad things have happened in the last few months, plenty of good has come out of it as well.
It’s eight and thirty after noon when we decide to leave the study room. We confirm the plans for tomorrow. I can’t take the Portal Network – Edward offers to pay the charge on my behalf, and I’m tempted to accept, but being Malaina means that the only way I can travel by portal is to have Electra come with me. And I don’t really want to ask Electra for any more favours after our last encounter.
So that means I’m stuck travelling the old-fashioned way: a day and a half’s coach ride and a night at an inn along the way. Edward is worried about me travelling alone, and if I’m honest so am I, especially knowing there’s a good chance that the coach’s passengers will recognise me. But it’s not like I have a vast array of better options. And I can’t spend forever afraid of going out in public. I’ll be fine.
The coach leaves from the City’s South Gate at eight after midnight, and the South Gate is a forty-five minute walk, so I’ll be rising early again. That’s not a problem for Edward, who volunteers to walk with me to the gate. I accept his offer, and with that we leave each other for the night.