Fallen Magic

“You weren’t at lunch,” says Edward accusingly as I drag myself into class a little while later.

“It wasn’t because of the essay,” I say. “My dad visited. I’ll get something in the City this afternoon.”

I’m later than normal, so that’s the only snatch of conversation we can have before Humphrey calls us to order and starts explaining the enchantment we’ll be working on today.

I keep my head down and work quietly. I have been finding Enchantments a lot easier recently; much though I hate to admit it, it’s probably Edward’s advanced lessons. They’re not directly relevant to what we’re covering today (enchantments to produce motion) but just the knowledge that I’ve cast enchantments far harder than this gives me the confidence to manage this as well.

Elsie and I set out straight from class. She’s already eaten, but doesn’t mind me grabbing something from a market stall on the way. I settle for a meat pastry, cheap but not suspiciously so and a lot nicer than I was expecting.

The City Library isn’t particularly central; it’s a good couple of miles’ walk from the Academy. That inevitably leads to much complaining about how long it’ll be until we can learn to teleport.

“The magic isn’t even that hard,” Elsie moans as we move aside to let a group of businessmen pass.

“No, but it’s dangerous,” I say. “You’re travelling through un-stabilised hyperspace; that’s not something that’ll end well if you make a mistake.” Edward has told me a few horror stories. And not learning to teleport until he’s a qualified magician is one of the few rules his father has set him.

Her response is lost as a large carriage rolls noisily past. It’s in a hurry, its driver forcing the horses to go ever faster, heading towards the Inner Ring. I try to catch a glimpse inside, but the glass is enchanted and reveals nothing.

For all our complaints about the walk, it does me good to get out of the Academy and stretch my legs. This is by far the most walking I’ve done since the riot, and while my ankle is beginning to ache a little by the end of it I don’t struggle to keep up with Elsie’s pace once.

The City Library is grand enough I would probably have been intimidated by the mere sight of it if I wasn’t living in a literal palace. Tall columns of white stone, ornately carved; a roof easily twenty or thirty feet above our heads; a huge wooden door hanging open.

“Well?” Elsie asks me once we’ve taken a few seconds to take in the view. “Shall we?”

There’s a queue of people passing through the door, with the look of academics: neatly but plainly dressed, many of them wearing spectacles or clutching satchels that must be filled with books and papers. It’s a diverse group in most respects, but everyone in it must be at least ten years older than us.

And here I am wanting to join them to research a high school essay. Stars, why did I decide this was a good idea? I’m glad I brought Elsie; if she wasn’t there I think I would have turned around and left. But she is, so we join the back of the queue together. We get some curious looks from the academics around us, but they don’t seem hostile.

The queue moves forwards quicker than I expected; either most of the academics have simple requests or whoever’s dealing with them is extremely efficient. I’m glad we don’t have to wait too long, so I don’t have enough time to question the decision to come here.

We shuffle forwards, and are indoors within a couple of minutes. The Library is just as grand on the inside: though the ceiling is low it’s painted with scenes from myth. The floor is marble and the walls are hung with tapestries and portraits of kings. I stare up at a mosaic depicting the legendary Elara departing on her last voyage for long enough that the person behind me tuts impatiently and I scurry forward a few steps, muttering an apology.

It seems as if I was right about the simple requests. Nearly everyone in the queue just flashes the woman behind the desk we’re queuing towards a piece of paper and then enters the Library proper through the door just behind the desk and to its left. We move at a slow walk, pausing for the occasional more complex request.

Until, too soon, the old woman in front of us is waved in and it’s our turn.

“Hello,” the receptionist says, her tone a little unfriendly. Maybe she thinks we’re here for a prank. “How can I help you?”

I look at Elsie. Elsie looks at me.

“Um,” I say. “Hi. I’d – we’d – like to view your collection of Malaina research. It’s for an academic project. We’re with the Royal Academy of Magical Arts. I’m told that’s one of your recognised partner institutions?”

“It is,” says the woman, a blank, bored expression on her face. “But we do require a statement from a teacher or researcher at the partner institution about the purpose of your research. Do you have that? And can I take your names?”

“Tallulah Roberts.”

“Elsie Morris.”

“I don’t – exactly have that, but I have the essay title we were assigned, if that’s – “

I stop, seeing the look on the woman’s face. She’s staring at me, mouth hanging open. It makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “did you just say you were Tallulah Roberts?”

Oh. Right. That. “Yes. I did.”

“As in…”

“Yes.”

She stares at me a second longer and then asks “What did he do to you?”

So that’s her favoured rumour, then. There are definitely worse ones out there, but I’m still not a fan of this one. “If by he you mean Lord Blackthorn, then nothing. It’s just as I said in the responses to questions I gave.”

She shakes her head. “Those can’t be trusted. Of course he told you what to say in them. I know you have no reason to trust me, either, but if there’s anything I can do to help you – “

“No,” I say with more force than I intended. “No. I’m fine. Lord Blackthorn hasn’t hurt me, I don’t need to escape from him. And those responses were entirely my own work.”

I’m suddenly glad of all the pain that was putting them together while still keeping up with schoolwork and dealing with my mother and everything else. It was worth it, if only so I can truthfully say that here and now.

I can tell she doesn’t believe me, though: she’s constructed a nice story for herself about the poor innocent girl drawn into the Black Raven’s plots, and she’s not going to let little things like reality get in the way of it. “If you really want to help me,” I say, “then please let us into the Library.”

She stares blankly at me for another moment, then says “Yes. Yes, of course. I’m so sorry,” and starts scribbling something on a scrap of paper. A moment later she hands it to me: it’s exactly what I wanted. A form authorising my companion and I to enter the Library and view all of its records pertaining to Malaina research.

“Thank you,” I say, meaning it. Even if she’s doing it for the wrong reasons, it does still save a lot of time and pain to have this now.

“She didn’t even remember my name,” Elsie complains quietly as we climb the stairs to the fourth floor, where the material we’re looking for can apparently be found.

“I wouldn’t mind my name being a little less memorable,” I reply in an equally hushed tone.

“Sorry,” Elsie says immediately.

“It’s okay.”

“I just…” she sighs. “Never mind.”

I’m about to ask her to go on anyway when we reach the fourth floor, step into the library proper and are awed into silence.

The room is maybe sixty feet long, and packed wall to wall with bookcases stretching up to the ceiling. And every single one of them is filled with hundreds of books and journals.

“Well,” says Elsie, grinning, “where do we start?”

It takes us nearly an hour in the end just to find a collection of relevant material. I probably should have researched what I wanted to research before starting this expedition; we end up having to page through decades’ worth of proceedings of various scientific organisations, skim the introductions to dozens of books (without getting sucked into reading them in depth, which is the most challenging part of all), clamber on the stools provided to reach the top shelves.

But eventually we’ve narrowed it down to a stack about Elsie’s height. At which point we realise that we have to carry it all to a reading room. I split it into two equally-sized piles and stare at the closer of the two for a few seconds before realising I’m not going to be able to lift it all at once.

“We’re magicians, stars,” Elsie says. “We should just be able to levitate the whole pile.”

“Edward probably could,” I agree. “Maybe we can manage at least some. Enough that we can carry the rest.”

“It’s either that or taking two trips,” Elsie agrees. “But I don’t want to lose focus and end up spilling books all over the staircase.”

“Me neither. Worth a try, though?”

“I will if you will.”

Well. I am a better magician than I think, if Edward is to be believed. I can manage a few books, can’t I?

I take the top six or seven off my stack and set them to one side. With that done I can lift the rest the mundane way with only a little difficulty.

The remainder is one book, An Investigation of the Malaina Condition in Six Cases, and a collection of journals. They’re smaller, less likely to fall if I mess this up. I set down the main stack and cast a levitation spell on the Investigation.

It works. I hover the smaller stack at about waist height for a little while. The tricky part is that I’m relying on my hands as a focus for controlling the spell, and I am not going to have free hands if I’m using both of them to carry the main stack.

“Well,” I say, ignoring that doubt. “Your turn.”

Elsie sighs. “I shouldn’t have agreed to this, should I?”

We make it, eventually, in a single trip and without spilling books everywhere – though I do nearly run into an old man because the books block my view of him walking towards me. “Now we can actually get to work,” I say, grinning.

“I am never letting you talk me into an expedition like this again,” Elsie replies, but she’s smiling too.

It takes us a little while to find an effective system, but we fall into an amicable and efficient rhythm of noting down the key ideas from our pile. The results verify the statistics Edward presented during the debate, more or less, but I’m more interested in an analysis that was carried out by a pair of researchers about a decade ago.

The premise was simple: examine the data that the government collects on all Malaina and look for patterns. The paper reproduces a lot of the raw data they used, including a table categorising the most common causes of Falling. Parental abuse is the most common, with about a third of cases falling into that group.

Most of the other categories are about what I would have expected: extreme poverty. Natural disasters. Abuse by other adults. Grief and loss. Frequent violent incidents. Isolated incidents of extreme violence or violence directed towards the Fallen. Unsafe or exploitative working environments.

And, making up about three percent of cases: other.

I guess that would be how I’m classified, according to this. I wish there was more detail there. How many people are behind that label and number? Are any of them like me, Fallen despite the absence of real trauma?

How many of them are mala sia?

I’m sucked into the world of Malaina research before I know it, and it seems like it’s only been a few minutes when a library attendant knocks on the door of the reading room to inform us that we only have fifteen minutes before the Library is closed for independent researchers, but we’re welcome to set books we want to return to aside and they will be left here for when we return.

Elsie and I quickly sort through the pile to work out what we’ve finished with and what we haven’t. We haven’t even made it halfway through, and I’ve nearly run out of paper to take notes on already. I’ll have to buy more this weekend if I want to have enough to last me another week’s lessons.