CHAPTER 96 – The Learn’d Magicìan

“Tell me again.”

Across from Saphienne in Celaena’s study, Faylar squared his shoulders. “If anyone specifically asks what I was doing with you, I tell them that I was helping you copy some books using the library’s Tome of Correspondence. I don’t try to hide it; I didn’t do anything wrong. I never looked at their contents because it was late and I was tired, and I wanted to get the task done. If they ask where the books were from, I say I don’t know, then I guess the originals were Taerelle’s. If they ask why at night, I say that’s when the tome wasn’t in use.”

Illuminated only by lamplight due to the late hour, Saphienne moved away from the drawn curtain with a nod. On the long table between them, Hyacinth was in her flowers amid the piled books, and the blossoms tracked the apprentice wizard as she came around to stand with Faylar. “If they press you?”

“Play ignorant.” His ears flicked, a nervous tic. “I’m good at that… but…”

“Having second thoughts? You don’t have to go through with this.”

“You need me,” he countered as he sank onto a nearby chair, “and I trust you; I’d trust you even more if you’d go over your reasoning, though.”

His request was fair. Saphienne pushed a hefty book aside and sat on the table, lifting the volume onto her lap to idly regard it as she quoted from memory. “In the section on restricted works… ‘Texts on magical theory may be owned by the following: a wizard, sorcerer, or apprentice thereof, duly recognised by the Luminary Vale; a librarian under the supervision of the Luminary Vale; or any individual granted written approval by a High Master of the Luminary Vale.’ Elsewhere it clarifies that possession is distinct from ownership, and that anyone can temporarily possess a restricted work, so long as they do not read it.”

“And the rest?”

“Trespass occurs only when ‘an individual has been barred from entry by the resident or custodian; or is not a habitual visitor to a personal residence; or enters for the purpose of committing a criminal act,’ and it separately specifies that a locked door counts as barring. There are defences against entering anyway, but they don’t matter: Almon only locks his door when he’s not home, and I’m a regular visitor.” She flicked through the pages of the collated, familiar dramas. “He’s letting me borrow books we’ve already been loaned, and I now routinely drop them off late in the evening. I can be there.”

Faylar nodded. “Assuming this isn’t a criminal act.”

“If I were to read his books without permission,” Saphienne conceded, “then I’d be committing a minor crime that would end my apprenticeship. It would be more serious if it was his spellbook, or any work that contained actual magic. But even then, reading is very tightly defined — reading the titles, the index, or even a couple of pages doesn’t count. There’s precedent from when a sorcerer left a book outdoors and someone stumbled on it, and they quite naturally had a look to see–”

“Don’t care.” He urged her on. “Theft?”

“To take his personal property out of his home without his consent? That’d be theft. Just handling his property doesn’t count — unless I damage it in the process, which is defined as ‘damage of sufficient degree that cannot be trivially repaired by the owner.’” She smirked. “Almon can cast spells of mending. Even were I to tear pages out, precedent says–”

“Copying.” Faylar bit his lip.

“The consensus,” Saphienne took pleasure in telling him, “prohibits anyone who could not own a restricted work from copying it for themselves, and goes on to specify that works subject to supervised access in a public library require the consent of the librarian to copy.” She glanced up with a grin. “That’s it! They didn’t go further, because if you borrow a book that you’re allowed to have, why in the world would it matter if you copied it for yourself?”

Exhaling as he slumped back, Faylar stared at her. “…So this all comes down to a technicality: if you read his books without his permission, then it’s a crime, but copying his books without reading them and then reading your own copies isn’t covered.”

“Not by the wording.” Identifying the play she was looking for, she raced through the archaic diction, half-recollecting the scenes from when she’d first struggled with them during her apprenticeship to Filaurel. “By the letter of what’s decided, I won’t be committing a crime. That puts a limit on the maximum applicable sanction, and that’s further restricted by whether something was destroyed or someone was hurt. The worst I could get is six months of house arrest, and anyone I talked into helping? They’d walk away with a stern warning.”

“My mother would never let me live it down…” He chuckled as he stood. “…She said the wardens really dislike new rules. They have to know them all, and the history behind them.”

“Infamy is one way to leave a mark, I suppose.”

“If you get caught! Don’t.” Faylar surveyed the pile beside Hyacinth. “…We should practice swapping the books out. I’ll bring the tome, and we’ll time ourselves. Have you thought about how to communicate the size of the text that’s to follow? I was thinking we could mark the lower end of the pages.”

“We’ll use a code: dots for inches, longest side.” Finding the dialogue she’d been searching for, Saphienne smiled. “I was thinking we could hide them, like with fore-edge painting.”

“…I don’t know what that is.”

“Art that’s hidden on the edge of books, visible only when the pages are tilted out of alignment. The practice is currently out of fashion, but you can view examples in some of the older books in the library.”

“How do you know this?”

She dismissed his incredulity. “I like reading the classics. You should, too: that’s how I knew Tolduin quoted from them, when we met him.” Her pale green eyes alighted on the lines she’d half-remembered, enjoying them better now that she was older:

 

… The sun’s a thief, and with his great attraction robs the vast sea. The moon’s an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun …

 

“…There’s meaning worth finding, there, if you’re prepared to take the time.”

Faylar rolled his eyes, by now well-acquainted with her condescension. “I’m sure. When will you be ready? The longer we have to prepare–”

“Soon.” She shut the book. “I can’t afford to wait. There’s only one problem left to deal with — and I’m close. Very close.”

 

* * *

 

Nineteen days ago, when Taerelle had agreed to make the emblems that would allow the transcription, she had surreptitiously warned Saphienne that the knowledge their master hoarded was not unguarded. Even when the door lay unlocked and the wizard sleeping, there was an ever-vigilant guardian who stood watch until morn.

“Good evening! Returning another?”

In spite of her best efforts at making herself unnoticeable, Saphienne had yet to evade the Hallucination spell that Almon named Peacock.

“You can put it on the shelf where it belongs. Left side, second down. Don’t worry about the books already there — he never keeps them in order.”

Disbelieving the figment wasn’t enough, for it drew on latent attention to exist, and the creature it simulated perceived whomever it depended upon. What Saphienne had been trying to do – was now trying to do, as she meditatively walked over to the bookcase in the parlour – was control the way in which she observed, seeking to render herself a blind spot while still maintaining her understanding of how the hallucination was proceeding. She’d achieved limited success, being able to contemplate the spell as a spell without disbelieving how it appeared, and to maintain the necessary concentration while moving.

All that she was missing was–

“You could at least say hello to me, you know.”

Saphienne shook her head, switching her perspective as she glanced across her shoulder to the bird. “Sorry Peacock, I have a lot on my mind…”

He hopped down from his favoured roost on the back of his master’s chair to perch on the nearest armrest, his happiness dimming. “I know. Almon told me. He said I was to leave you to grieve — but sticking my beak into things is a familiar’s right.” Head tilted, his blue eyes softened where they studied her. “How have you been?”

“I’m well. I’m focusing on casting my spell. Your master is wrong about me — and I’ll prove it.”

“He’s still your master too,” Peacock chirped, “in a different way. I’m glad you’re keeping your head up. If you don’t mind me asking…” He stretched his iridescent neck out. “…You seem awfully confident you know better than he does, and you’re not given to believing things without reason. Why so sure?”

Was she talking with her own imagination, or with Almon’s? “I know Filaurel: we’re not the same. She can’t feel magic at all, can’t even use craft magic… but I can.”

He twittered to himself, leaning back. “…Interesting. Very interesting.”

Suspicious of the way Peacock emphasised that word, Saphienne set the book on the shelf and crouched down before him. “Do you know something that could help me?”

“I know a little.” He shimmied from side-to-side. “Much of what Almon knows belongs to me, too, though if I have to think hard to answer a question he gets a headache. I have to know, to help with his spells.”

Forever curious, Saphienne held back her larger concern. “I’ve wondered about that. How does a… magnificent bird like yourself… provide the concentration to maintain–”

“Careful, you’ll lose me.”

She folded her arms. “Try me. You can make fun of me if I do.”

Fashioned by his master, Peacock enjoyed competition just as much, and her wager won a click and bob of agreement. “It’s still his concentration! When he said I’m made of his dreams – except more pompously – that was true, but that’s because I emerge from his unconscious mind. The magic that gives me form–”

Shimmering before her, the bird grew unreal–

“Sorry,” Saphienne interrupted, willing herself to behold him like a sigil, seeing both the magic and the bird, the spell and the fantasy, “could you repeat that?”

His laughter was merry. “Very good! As I was saying: the magic that gives me form isn’t what gives me a mind. I’m within my master, apart from him.”

“…A subdivision of Almon?”

“We all contain multitudes, Saphienne.” He spread his wings. “I’m just louder – and far more handsome – than the cacophony.”

“Then,” she pressed the flamboyant shard of transcendental truth that refracted the mind of the wizard, “how much of you actually comes from me? I know you draw on observers other than Almon. Are you in my mind? Part of me, as well?”

“Everything you behold is in your mind…” Peacock opened his beak in a smile. “…Whether or not you agree with Almon’s philosophy! Your mind makes perception into being: that’s how I exist for you. What you want to know is whether the blue and green and yellow of my feathers are the same colours for everyone else.”

That, she knew from her experiments with floral figments. “They are, but only when we all perceive you at the same time, and thereafter only insofar as our memories align when we meet you independently. I’d wager that you would be less physically detailed now, if I hadn’t first met you with Celaena.”

“She does know birds,” Peacock conceded.

“So my imagination and belief shape you?”

The familiar paused. “…Where they don’t contradict my master’s.”

And if they did contradict, Saphienne realised, it would be a contest of belief, one that couldn’t fundamentally change who the Hallucination spell depicted, but could change how that depiction played out.

“You’ve done very well not to lose me,” he complimented her. “There are senior apprentices I couldn’t talk to like this. Rydel can’t take me half as seriously as you.”

She relaxed into regarding him as a living being alone. “Our master doesn’t take you very seriously; I like to be contrary.”

A chirp greeted her joke. “To him! Understandably.”

Ignoring her preoccupation any longer would be avoiding it. “Peacock… what do you think about my situation? Knowing what you know, and what I’ve told you about myself.”

Flexing the long feathers of his tail, the bird looked down at his talons, tapping them contemplatively. “Pardon the pun, but I’m in two minds about you. Being unable to memorise a spell makes you useless as a wizard… but the reason Almon gave for why doesn’t seem right to me. If you didn’t have any connection to magic, then you wouldn’t have got so far in figuring it out.”

Saphienne blinked. “…How did I miss that? If all I could see was the symbol on the page then I’d have never been able to–”

“You’re not the only one who did.” Peacock conspiratorially raised his eyes to the ceiling. “He realised it after you left. But he also considered how he was likely still right: rather than being absent, your magic is so weak that it can’t support the sigil.”

“He wouldn’t want to give me false hope,” she commented, dryly. “Is there any other explanation you can think of?”

The bird’s eye twitched as he considered–

“Peacock!” Almon bellowed. “Whatever distracts you, not now!”

–And then he flinched. “Bad timing: he’s puzzling over his game again. He’s known he’s losing all week.”

“One last question, then,” she insisted. “Assuming my connection to magic is present but weak, can it be strengthened?”

“No.”

“…You’re certain?”

He puffed out his feathers, then flattened them down. “Almon is! That’s what he was taught. Some are born with greater talent than others, and learning to use that talent doesn’t change how much they have. If you could demonstrate otherwise, he’d be confounded.”

Quite forgetting what she was speaking to, Saphienne pursed her lips. “…Do you think I can?”

“Who else could? You’re always surprising our master. I give you even odds of winning over him.”

Better than she expected, given the source. Reminding herself that the hour was late and she didn’t want to rouse the suspicion of the wizard, she stood and bowed. “See you in the morning.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Goodnight, Saphienne.”

She left the minor marvel in the classroom.

 

* * *

 

Hearing the quiet crunch of the leaves beneath her feet was eerie in the dark, the closest thing to having human footsteps she might experience. As Saphienne walked back to Celaena’s home she pondered how Felipe would have felt if he’d known the books he traded for coin were so easily copied, and then what he might think of her endeavour. Would he say she was wrong? She supposed he would, since he lived in a world where the trade in knowledge, even stories, was what determined whether he ate or starved.

And yet, even so, and even if the wood elves condemned her, she had compelling reason. That she truly had no other way — could that earn his forgiveness?

No matter how Felipe would see her, Saphienne chose to believe he’d–

 

* * *

 

“Saphienne! Did you forget something?”

Hesitation; confused fluttering.

“…Saphienne?”

Stood outside the door, which had remained closed the whole time, Saphienne made a show of checking over the contents of her satchel and therein discovering her notes, shaking her head as she spun on her heel and stalked away. The watching Wardens of the Wilds, who had seen her prior performance of searching in the middle of the grove, would hopefully think she’d realised that the papers she’d left behind had been on her person — perhaps even find her antics amusing.

They would never know it was a fiction, just as Peacock would never know that the Saphienne who he was convinced he’d seen in the classroom was equally fictitious, a figment of a figment’s senses.

 

* * *

 

Rising early the next day, Saphienne bathed and dressed before catching a sleepy Celaena on her way down to the kitchen. “I’m going to go on ahead — don’t hurry after. You’re out visiting Iolas tonight, aren’t you?”

Celaena’s ears were drooping with tiredness. “I wasn’t planning–” she began, before her ears abruptly stood at full alertness “–on coming back early. You shouldn’t wait up for me.”

Smiling her affection, Saphienne promised she wouldn’t.

 

* * *

 

As Saphienne sat cross-legged in the middle of the parlour, the bird who was a spell who was a familiar who was – in a sense – his own master had no concept that she was present before him. Nor had he experienced the door opening.

She’d been trying the wrong way around. Controlling her awareness to give the figment less attention wasn’t the solution: she’d needed to give him more. For the more she gave the Hallucination spell, the more reality as she understood it informed the bird, drowning out whatever else defined him.

From where she regarded Peacock, Saphienne believed beyond all doubt that he knew she was going to arrive with Celaena. And he wasn’t wrong; that fact of her absence was absolutely, inerrantly the truth in the world the figment inhabited. That his world diverged from her lived experience was irrelevant — for he was, despite all the magic, merely a story the wizard and his apprentices were telling themselves.

Quietly, another apprentice arrived.

“Good morning, Iolas! Did you sleep well last night?”

She closed her eyes, pretending meditation so that Iolas wouldn’t disturb her. The proven apprentice politely returned the illusory greeting as he hung up his outer robes, then settled down beside her.

Sweat trickled down the curve of her back as she strained.

Then, from atop the stairs, Almon surveyed the room — and the moment he saw her, Peacock let out a startled squawk and fell off his chair.

 

* * *

 

You may wonder: would the wizard understand what had happened, when he listened to his familiar insist that Saphienne hadn’t been sitting there?

He might have. But Peacock did not insist.

As befuddled as he had been when he returned from behind the veil that obscured the hidden clearing, the figment picked himself up off the floor and couldn’t understand what had so thrown him. Why, Saphienne had been sitting there all morning, hadn’t she?

Iolas knew so; Saphienne knew so; and Peacock knew so, for the girl seamlessly shifted her opinion of the bird to align with the scene as it appeared to Iolas, who had seen her upon entry.

She asserted that Peacock had been aware of her, and it was so.