CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Good morning.” Master Carter wiped his dripping hands on his robes from behind a steaming cauldron. I hung my light spring coat over a hook.
“Morning, Master Carter.”
His gaze dropped to the folder in my arms. He held out a hand. “Your proposal?”
I nodded. “Thank you for taking it to the palace for me.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to take it yourself.”
I shuddered even thinking about the trek to the castle. Since becoming a Master’s apprentice, I’d only snuck into the servants’ quarters once or twice to visit Anna. There were too many ghosts, too many memories of my own foolishness haunting its halls.
I tried to hide my embarrassment with a shrug. “You already attend the weekly Mage Council meetings.”
He flipped a few pages, skimming my findings. “And what conclusion have you come to during this independent research project of yours?”
The breakthrough had come from one of Anna’s smuggled books, late one night when I read only by the flickering light of a lone candle as my family slumbered.
I took a big breath. “That the plague was planned.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I stepped forward, pulling out the map tucked in the pages, the one I’d torn from the very atlas I’d bought Papa when he first fell sick.
“The plague has spread throughout the continent rapidly, but after assembling a crude timeline, I realized the first cases appeared in Lakeview. Convenient for it to start in a port city that leads out to the ocean, no?”
He frowned.
“From the port, it spread throughout the Amouridian prairies, from city to city, and then on to Junira. A few old reports show Kerimiyans also falling to the disease in the following year.”
“So that leaves…”
“A potential origin in Cobleran or Pa’abo.”
He rubbed his jaw. “So which is it? And how will you disprove the assertion that cases arose from a natural source?”
I fidgeted under his scrutiny. “I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—feel comfortable pointing a finger at any kingdom. I’m not a politician, after all. But several signs do seem to point to the disease being planted here.”
“Such as…”
“It seems to have started with a single merchant ship. The boat stopped at both Cobleran and Pa’abo. When it arrived at Lakeview, only one passenger was left alive, barely clinging to the helm. He died shortly after.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And no other sailors on the docks seemed to have similar symptoms? No rats on deck with curious signs at the time?”
“All the rats on this ship were dead, yet there was ample for them to eat. And from there, the sickness spread to the sole survivor’s family, extended family, colleagues, and so on.”
“How can you be sure? This must have happened quickly.”
I nodded. “It happened slowly and then all at once. The ghost ship incident made local papers. Initial transmissions were slow and spontaneous. It’s hard to imagine the same disease that infects random family members could wipe out an entire ship.”
“Unless…”
“Unless the ship’s passengers were meant to be a weapon.”
Master Carter’s expression was grave. “Who have you told of this?”
“No one,” I murmured. “It’s all gleaned from documents, most of which won’t be traced back to me.
” I pulled out one notable letter to show him.
“This one was from the healing mage who treated the lone navigator from the ghost ship. He failed to fall sick, but his wife and youngest child passed away that year.”
Master Carter took the letter from me, eyes scanning for the truth the way I had not long ago with Anna by my side, late into the night.
“After establishing the illness’s entry,” I continued, “tracking its path became easier—collecting obituaries, writing healing mages across the country. Not a single person I wrote had found a cure.”
His fingers tightened around the letter. “So we are hopeless.”
“Not quite,” I said. “I did find something that could be of use.” I flipped to the last page of my folder which listed the names of several key victims, many copied from the one I’d given Prince Thomas a year ago. “Surprisingly, not a single Master mage has died from the plague.”
My chest ached at the words. This was the hardest discovery to accept of all—the more physical the magic, the more simple and easy to master, the more likely the mage was to succumb to the illness.
Which meant many magic-users living in poverty, never able to access resources like formal education and training, were exceptionally vulnerable.
And Papa—a man of steel and fire, one who had seemed bigger than the world for most of my childhood—was one such mage.
His body tensed. “You mean…”
“It’s an illness that preys on the nonmagical and untrained.”
“Do you think that’s intentional?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. What I do know is that if we figure out why trained magic users are surviving, perhaps we can reverse the tide. It might lead us to a foolproof cure.”
He nodded, a tentative smile crossing his face. He walked closer. “You’re going to be accepted with work like this, Lyra. You identified a need, researched, and presented a solution that could help all of Amouridia.” He beamed. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks,” I said, but all I could think of was Asha’s bony form, her hollow voice.
“And,” he said, “I have something for you.”
I tilted my head as he walked back, flipping through his desk for a single letter sealed in dark green wax, a cursive J overtop wrapped in thin strips of bamboo.
I recognized it immediately. “The Society in Junira wrote back?” A faint rush filled my ears.
“Yes. I presume they found something of use for our query about your premonitions and fortune-telling ancestor.”
I took it from him, fingers trembling as I ripped the seal and scanned the words scrawled across the embossed parchment. The paper quivered in my grasp.
Lyranore Smyth,
We appreciate your inquiry into questions regarding an unexplored area of magic. Many students take for granted that only a handful of physical elements exist, the ones they are taught since they are young, and the ones the majority of mages show a proclivity for.
However, recent philosophical progress has forced us to re-evaluate our own understanding of the magic threads woven within us. If the threads are not physical, as local physicians assure us, then could nonphysical elements be shaped and pressed together too?
A few of our most prominent students have proposed an expedition into the Wild Lands to put together a dissertation on alternative elements and magic philosophies beyond the borders of Amouridia and Junira.
As you likely know, the raw magic present there has caused rumors of abstract magics to abound.
For example, they are particularly interested in reports from recent immigrants who have crossed our borders, who claim mages who can alter the mind, heart and soul exist. Even more interestingly, they say they know of powerful magic users that can bend time itself, one manifestation of the element being “fortune-telling” as you so called it.
We believe you may be one such mage.
After hearing Master Carter praise your quick thinking, ambition, and natural talent, as well as suspecting your special gifting, we are pleased to offer you a full scholarship to our academy next year.
In return, we ask that you work privately with professors to hone, experiment with, and document your skillset so that we may know more about this mysterious magic and what it might achieve.
We also request that this discovery remain confidential. Recent events have made the Mage Council difficult to trust, and until certain internal matters are resolved, we would prefer your abilities remain known only to trusted parties.
Sincerely,
Lukas Valencroft
Head Mage at Junira’s College of Advanced Magic
President of The Mage Society