Chapter 17 #2
“Actually, it resembles something in one of our textbooks for this semester. I’m teaching Comparative Magical Practice and Cross-Cultural Roots of Power.
I took it over when my mother passed.” He pulled out another one of the books, a textbook his mother had co-authored, and passed it over. “Check out chapter ten.”
I flipped through and found the right chapter. Skimming the text, I found a few diagrams closely resembling the one I’d drawn. In fact, with a few different symbols, it was identical. The caption listed it as a spell found etched in an ancient Roman waterway.
“That does look similar,” I said. “Is there anyone else other than your mother who could tell me anything about this specific spell?”
“Unfortunately, my mother was one of the top experts on this. There’s a few other professors who study some of it. Mostly at Harvard and in Europe. I can give you their contact information, if you want.”
“Thanks,” I said. He turned to a new page in the notepad and began writing some names. I paged through and found more symbols that could have been pieced together to make the one that had attacked me.
“Must be hard to be teaching your mother’s class.”
“Well, she did literally write the book on it,” he said, frowning as he added another name. “And the only reason it’s being offered at all right now is it was a two-semester class. Fortunately, it’s just a seminar, and the college is considering not even offering it next year.”
“So this isn’t exactly common knowledge?”
“No, no. Even when my mother was teaching it, it was a niche study. I mean, this time there’s only,” he paused to count a list of students in a nearby grade book, “twelve taking it.”
“Is that the list of students? Could I get a copy of it?” I asked. He snapped the book closed.
The murders had started after a semester of this class, in San Amaro, where one of the few experts in the field lived.
There was a pretty good chance one of the students knew something, maybe the dead professor had mentioned something.
It would wrap things up neatly if it was one of them, but that might be hoping for too much.
“I’m sorry, do you have a warrant?” He looked up from the notepad. “Don’t you need a warrant for that information?”
“I’ll get one,” I said, accepting back the notepad. Skimming the list, I saw a couple of professors at Harvard and Georgetown, three at Oxford, and one at the Sorbonne.
“Can I keep this?” I held up the textbook.
“Of course.” He collected the other books.
Standing, he began putting them back on the shelf and knocked over a picture. It rotated as it fell, turning face down and landing on the corner of his desk, glass shattering with a crunch. Mark spun, gasping. He reached for the picture, but I’d already picked it up.
I frowned at what I was seeing. It was a teenage Mark Woolworth in a practice uniform, in what looked like an alchemy studio. He was standing between two serious looking men, both tall and wearing dark uniforms, showing them to be higher level alchemists.
To one side stood a much younger Nick. He was staring into the camera without a smile, matching the men’s expressions. Looking between them, I could see some familial resemblance.
The broken glass featured a circle of some sort etched in. I had no idea what it powered, but it looked more commemorative than functional. The frame was obviously as valuable as the photo to Woolworth.
“Hey,” I said. “No worries, I know a little bit of spellcraft. Do you want me to fix it?”
The offer was like a siren song. All fae offers were. There was a reason the children followed the pied piper. Sure, he offered them treasures beyond their imaginings, but also something in the offering was tempting in a way that made most people lose just enough reason to consider accepting.
It was how people found themselves obligated to fae. Not that I would ever pull on someone’s strings like that. With my own obligation riding me, I didn’t want to put anyone else in that position. The idea made my skin crawl.
“Yes,” Woolworth said. “Fix it.”
Saying a quick chant of mending as a cover for the fae magic I was using, I talked the glass into melding back together. When I finished, there wasn’t any damage at all. The circle was unbroken.
It was like I couldn’t help myself. Something in my nature maybe was just as terrible as the rest of them were, because even though I didn’t want to, I still let the obligation stretch between us.
He owed me. The only thing I had was a promise to myself I wasn’t like them, so I wouldn’t call in the obligation. I had to be better than that.
Ignoring his suspicious squint, I handed over the picture to Woolworth. “Was that your old studio?”
He tugged the picture out of my hand. “I trained at one of the other King studios, the one that used to be here in town before they closed it. This was at a special weekend class I was able to take with the actual King family.”
I made a soft humming noise to keep him talking, and he tapped the older man in the photo. “This is Robert King. He’s the greatest alchemist of his generation. Probably even the greatest alchemist from the past hundred years.”
“That must be his son?”
“Yes! Both of them, actually,” he said. “Andrew and Nicholas King. It was amazing to be able to learn from the greats.”
Reverently, he placed the photo back on the shelf.
“I’d love to have met them,” I said. “Sounds like it was a once in a lifetime experience.”
“Usually, he works with presidents, CEOs, but he was very generous with his time,” Woolworth said. “And Andrew took over as head of the organization this year, so there’s little chance of learning from Robert again. Although I’ve heard he still takes a few select students every year.”
“You think he might take you as a student?”
Woolworth’s face fell, his lips twisting like he’d tasted something sour. “No, no. I don’t have nearly enough magic to make me interesting.”
Amount of power was everything to an alchemist. Unlike witches who could consensually share power, and thus use their coven’s collected magic to power larger spells, alchemists were strict about keeping themselves pure. The only magic they had access to was what they produced themselves.
An alchemist with a small amount of magic would be limited for their entire lives.
They might be able to do more complicated spells, but it would take years of powering each element.
There were more than enough men who spent more time arguing alchemy nuance on the internet than they actually spent using their insignificant power to do any spells.
It was a timely reminder, though. The amount of power needed to perform the spell that killed the incubus would be beyond a lot of alchemists, and most witches would need permission from their coven to access that amount of magic.
“Thanks.” I stood and saluted Mark with the notebook, before walking out the door.
I needed the names of the students from his seminar. It was too convenient the murders began now, when a new crop of students had just learned about similar spells.