Chapter 13
An Academic Magpie
H eels tap across the floorboards on the other side of the door before it opens, revealing a woman not much older than me, unremarkable-looking, except for a slight smudge of ink next to the corner of her mouth, as though she has chewed on the end of her pen.
Professor Lewellyn. She smiles, ushering me inside her study, and closes the door with a soft click in my wake.
It’s a damp, dreary day at Killmarth and I’ve only just caught up on sleep after the first Ordeal.
But here, there’s no rest for the wicked and when I received the summons for my first mentor session, I was more than intrigued. I was ready.
‘Before we begin, I want you to tell me what you see in here,’ Professor Lewellyn says. ‘I set the illusions for the Crucible in the parlours and the courtyard, but from what I observed that night, you brushed them aside like cobwebs.’
‘All right,’ I say, stepping forward. The study is bigger than I expected, a large window overlooking the snaking path through the sea and the small town of Marazia.
The panes on the other side are peppered with sea spray, the streaks of salt warping the view, the town appearing twisted and malformed.
Inside the study, one wall from floor to ceiling holds a huge number of books.
Stacked one on top of the other, jammed into small spaces, even piling up on the floor in front of the bookshelf. Lewellyn’s own collection.
I drift over, running my fingertips over a couple of volumes, gold or silver foil lettering glinting on the spines of green or pale blue volumes. Many of them appear to be history books. I glance back at Lewellyn and find she is watching me with an interested smile.
There is a window seat with two crumpled cushions and a heartwood desk filled with parchment and notebooks, pens living in a jumble in a ceramic pot and a letter opener next to a ripped-open envelope, set down as if Lewellyn had just been about to extract the letter inside and read it.
I note that it’s just her first name on the front, Hester.
I bite my lip, eyes roaming past it, over the well-worn chair and the cluttered collection of framed prints on the wall behind the desk.
It’s an academic magpie’s lair. Lewellyn is a collector, a hoarder of knowledge, and I have not yet found a single glint of magic to mark the signs of an illusion cast over it.
‘Give up?’ she asks from near the doorway.
I shake my head. ‘Not yet.’
The study looks to be free of all wielding, but did she ask because there’s something here for me to find, or because there’s not?
I approach the window carefully, keeping it at the corner of my vision, and that’s how I see it: at an angle.
I realise the view beyond is indeed twisting and warping, but not necessarily due to the salt streaks on the panes.
There’s a shimmering, a pearlescent glow, and as I get closer, I catch the glint of threads weaving in and out.
I point at the window. ‘Here. You’ve created an illusion here, on the glass. ’
‘Well done.’ She takes a breath. ‘Now, remove it.’
I turn to her, frowning. ‘Remove the illusion?’
‘Yes. Remove the illusion I’ve wielded on the window and reveal the true view beyond.’
‘I’ve never done that before. Never even attempted to. I don’t know how.’ I swallow, turning back to the window.
‘Now seems like an excellent time to start then, Sophia.’
I sigh through my nose and tuck my hair behind my ears, trying to focus my leaping thoughts on the puzzle before me, and how I am to solve it.
How can I just remove another wielder’s illusion?
I can see it is one, know something isn’t real, but to remove it for any other person, even to remove its influence from my own mind, is a whole other skill.
‘I’m not sure I can. I didn’t even know it was possible.’
‘Try.’
Try. No repercussions, no threats if I fail.
No reward either, not a stick or a carrot.
Just … try . I press my lips together, moving closer still to the window, until I am standing squarely before it, the pearlescence of Lewellyn’s magic.
When I focus, allowing my mind to quiet, for stillness to muffle the insistent clamour of my thoughts, I find the intricate web of threads.
They’re so tightly, neatly woven, that they are almost like a cobweb, fine and delicate, every colour I’ve ever beheld.
This is the shape of Lewellyn’s magic; it’s formed of cobwebs of illusion.
I reach towards it, imagining a thread of my own magic darting out like a tiny needle, piercing the very fabric of her illusion.
‘That’s it, yes …’ she says quietly, encouragingly.
I give it a short, sharp tug, and tear a hole in her illusion.
There is a crackle across the window, and what was there loses form and substance, and I create another hole, then another, until the gossamer shape of the illusion falls away. Revealing the true view beyond.
‘You look out over the gardens,’ I say, stepping up to the window to gaze out over the real view. The sunken levels of each terrace and each walled garden are spread before me, reaching all the way down to the sea.
She steps up to the window next to me. ‘And now, we’ve figured out your particular specialism within illusion.
You are excellent at seeing magic and unpicking it.
That hardly cost you anything at all, did it?
In fact, I believe you barely noticed the drain on your own magic.
That’s why you were able to discern the real from illusion in the Crucible, even though you used your magic extensively.
What costs you most, what drains you the fastest is creating an illusion, and holding it. ’
I nod. ‘It’s something I’ve been practising and trying to improve alone for years.’
‘That’s good, of course. And you should continue practising, so you have a grounding at least.’ She nods. ‘But in these sessions before you become a scholar, I will focus on what you are already innately attuned to, and make sure you excel.’
‘I want to excel,’ I admit, looking over at her. It’s like she’s twisted the kaleidoscope, and my own understanding of my wielding has changed completely. I am good at something. I just didn’t understand what it was. ‘I’ve never felt like I could before.’
‘And you never had an illusionist to work with? A tutor perhaps, or a teacher at your school?’
‘I … no,’ I say, deciding to withhold the fact I did not attend a school. I am still unsure how that kind of information about my lack of education may affect my chances here. Telling Tessa or Alden is one thing, but to tell my mentor, a member of the faculty? No.
She shrugs, moving to sit on the chair behind her desk and drums her fingernails on the reddish brown, polished heartwood.
‘Then I will set illusions and you must crack them. Like puzzles.’ She bends to rummage through a desk drawer, pulling out a set of small photo frames.
Scrunching her nose, she waves a hand over each and passes them to me.
‘I want you to remove the illusions I have just wielded on each of these and bring them back when you are done.’
I study them, finding a sepia-toned portrait of a young man, a dog sitting beside his master under a tree, and the blurry image of a train with smoke billowing around it.
‘I also want you to practise wielding. It’s a muscle, and it must be used every day to strengthen it.
Up until now, you may have tried in bursts and starts, but it’s about consistency.
Create an illusion for a few minutes each day, then when you’re ready, extend it to work on more people.
Create the illusion of an inanimate object, see if it falters, see if you can create an illusion in the minds of a whole group.
Then try to hold it for longer each time. ’
I nod, taking this in, that simple word unlocking something in my mind.
Consistency. Something so obvious, but that I’ve not had the time nor space to focus on before.
‘You may go. And, Sophia—’
‘Yes?’
She smiles. ‘Illusion is the practice of bending what someone expects to see. Start with something simple, so you are expending less magic. The more you have to convince another mind that something exists, or does not, the harder you will find it, and the more it will drain you.’
‘You make it sound so simple, so obvious.’ I frown. ‘I should have started smaller, shouldn’t I? Instead of convincing someone there’s suddenly no light, I should have, I don’t know, created a picture on a wall. Something a mind could register and accept.’
She replies. ‘Think of an illusion like a lever. Wedge it into a mind in a way that creates the least amount of effort, then push it, using the least force, the least amount of pressure to yourself. You’ll figure it out.’
The third murder occurs at midnight. The begging, weeping pulls me awake and I stumble out of bed, straight for the window.
Two figures. A young woman holds up her hands, a smudge of grey coat and fair hair far below.
I place my fingertips on the windowpane, narrowing my eyes as her frightened bleating crescendos to a scream.
The other figure, cloaked and turned away from Hope, blocks her fully from view and I fling my window open.
For a heartbeat there is a slight shimmer around them, threads of magic, but I blink and it’s gone.
Then I hear it. The cut and twist, the blade sliding out.
She gurgles, slumping over, and the figure turns towards Hope, scanning the near dark.
I duck, breathing fast, placing my fist over my mouth. Did they see me? Are they even now walking across the threshold of Hope Hall, climbing the stairs, searching for my door?