Fallen Magic

My epiphany doesn’t change much, at least not at first. Things go on in the way that’s somehow become normal. I write as much of the essay as I can before returning to the City Library, though I’ll probably have to completely redraft it to fit in the additional points I’ll discover. Edward is willing to lend me his copy-quill, though, which will make that process significantly less painful.

I show him the draft. He’s impressed, though not as much so as I hoped; he’s lost in a world of magic I can’t understand, teaching himself improved ward schemes so that the next time we need to have a private conversation it will stand a far smaller chance of being overheard.

“Warding is a more interesting branch of magic than I thought,” he tells me. “I don’t think I’m going to specialise in it over enchantments, but definitely worth devoting more time to. I’ll have to, anyway, if I want to not be a completely useless Royal Magician.”

I blink at him for a second; it’s easy to forget that he’ll one day be responsible for maintaining the wards that cover the entire City and many of its most important buildings. Only Edward could believe he’ll become a good enough wardsmith to do that effectively without it even being his specialism. Then again, as far as I know only one of the current five Royal Magicians is a specialist in wards, so it’s certainly possible.

I’m recruited as a test subject for the various new wards Edward tries to cast. More advanced versions of the privacy wards he’s already using, ones that give the illusion that no-one is present within. Trip wards linked to Edward’s mind that inform him whenever someone crosses them. Simple anti-magic wards that make it harder to cast within them.

“You’re calm at the moment, aren’t you?” he asks before getting me to step into the last of those.

“Why?” I ask suspiciously. I was perfectly calm until his question implied there was a reason not to be.

“Malaina episodes and anti-magic wards… don’t mix well.”

I consider that for a second. It makes a certain amount of sense: trying to supress a Malaina episode through sheer force of will never ends well, so attempting the same by means of brute magical force is unlikely to go much better. I suppose otherwise it would be used as a method of controlling episodes.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“Good,” says Edward, and beckons me into the chalk circle.

I step inside. Nothing noticeable changes. “I guess now I try casting something?”

“No, you hop around the circle chanting a prayer.”

Edward is very good at making sarcastic statements sound serious, so it takes me a second to realise the obvious. I try to think what I should cast; unlike Edward I don’t typically carry things around just for the purposes of testing magic.

He realises that at the same time as I do, and tosses me one of his marbles. I catch it almost without thinking and mutter a levitation-spell. The marble stays stubbornly in my hand.

“I’m an idiot,” Edward says.

“Isn’t this what’s supposed to happen?”

“Yes, but I haven’t accounted for the Wilson-Marks effect.”

I glare at him until he realises I have no idea what the Wilson-Marks effect is.

“If someone believes they’re within an anti-magic ward, then they’ll believe that their spells will fail. And hence their spells will fail, regardless of whether they are in fact within an anti-magic ward. It’s not guaranteed, of course, there are a considerable number of variables affecting the individual’s likelihood to falsely believe…”

I let him keep talking a little longer. It’s a lot more interesting than the usual sort of magical theory Edward lectures me on, and I’m impressed he’s managed to go the whole weekend without giving me more lectures.

“So what does this mean for your tests?” I ask once he’s done.

“Oh – right – that. I’m not sure how vulnerable you’ll be to the effect – I’ve tried and failed to cast in there, and I’d like to hope I wouldn’t be affected, but we can’t be sure. I’ll do a proper trial to account for this.”

He sends me out of the room.

We’ve been working in a meeting room – it’s probably best to do a project like this somewhere we can’t be disturbed, since it would be at the very least frowned upon by the powers that be at the Academy – so there’s no-one else in the corridor outside. I pace back and forth for a couple of minutes until he calls me back in.

There are two chalk circles on the floor now, both the same size and with what looks at a glance like the same simple pattern just outside.

“One of these two circles has an activated anti-magic ward, and the other has an un-activated one which will have no effect except possibly due to Wilson-Marks. Pick one and try casting.”

I peer more closely at the patterns.

“And don’t try to figure out which is which, please, that defeats the entire point of what we’re trying to achieve.”

I jerk my eyes away guiltily and pick the leftmost circle at random. I suppose I want to believe that my spell will succeed, that I’ve chosen the un-activated ward, for this to work. So I tell myself that it’ll work, and cast the levitation-spell again. Nothing happens.

I glance at Edward, who’s keeping his face carefully blank. “Now try the other one.”

So I cross the chalk lines to the second circle. Assuming that I’m not particularly susceptible to this Wilson-Marks effect – and if I got the right impression from Edward’s brief lecture most magicians would be able to cast normally believing there’s a fifty percent chance they’re in an anti-magic ward when they’re not – this should be the un-activated one and my spell should work.

It does.

“There we are,” I say. “Looks like your wards work.”

“Looks like they do,” Edward replies. “I am actually curious about how you’d fare in the standard Wilson-Marks tests now, but I understand if you’d rather not have me experimenting on you.”

“Actually,” I say, “I don’t have a problem with that.”

He clearly wants to do it, and it gives me the chance to learn magical theory in a more practical way than we’re taught in classes. And a little voice inside me wonders whether some of these tests might reveal something about whatever’s happening with my magical signature.

But if there is something strange about my magic, it isn’t so easily revealed. I’m unusually unsusceptible to Wilson-Marks, apparently, contrary to my expectations. Edward is too: he taught me to activate and deactivate the two ward circles and then made me run the same tests on him, though he says it’s less effective on someone who’s already familiar with their methodology.

We try a few other experiments too. Edward gets me to do a few tests to see which School he defaults to using for which type of magic. Siaril for enchantments and conjurations, Malaina for spells is the general pattern; the only exception we find is illusions.

“I’m jealous,” I say. “It’s so much easier being able to choose the School most suited to the task. I’m stuck with Malaina even for spellwork Malaina are worse at.”

“My dad could source the components for the Arsinth ritual for you, if you want?”

I stare blankly at him. I should be used to this sort of thing by now. But this isn’t just fancy enchanted gadgets he’s offering. It’s to be a magician twice over. The cost is vast, the legal restrictions extreme.

And Lord Blackthorn could – and, if Edward is to be believed, would – do that for me.

“I – “ I say when I can trust myself to speak again. “It was just – wishful thinking. It would be nice to have a second School, but I don’t need it. Not really. Don’t make him go to that much trouble on my account.”

Don’t put me in that much debt to him. Even if he never demanded financial compensation for it, I would not be surprised if Lord Blackthorn used something like that to coerce me somewhere down the line.

Edward laughs. “It wouldn’t be trouble. He’s actively trying to lose as much of the family fortune as he can.”

“…what?”

“Or that’s what my grandmother says, anyway. One of the things I had to put up with her telling me for information about my mother. My grandfather would be turning in the grave if he knew, apparently, and that’s probably most of the reason he’s doing it.”

Of all the things I expected to learn about Lord Blackthorn, that he’s trying to lose a fortune to spite his dead father is not one of them. Then again, not necessarily: we only have his mother’s word on it, and I don’t know how reliable a source she’d be.

“Well,” I say, “I’m sure he can find plenty of ways to do that that don’t involve me.”

Edward laughs again.

I have a couple more Magical Theory study sessions with Elsie. They go well; I’m starting to understand how her mind works and what sort of explanation she’ll best understand, and it’s helping me with revision as well. Though even the thought of revision is beginning to become scary as the tests approach.

I draw up a proper timetable for the next couple of weeks, giving me enough time to go back through all the content I want to and work through sets of practice questions. Edward sees it and immediately steals it from me and forces me to create a new version giving myself more breaks.

“It’s fine,” I tell him. “This is no more intense than what I did for Genford end-of-year exams last year – “

“And that,” he replies, “is my point.”

That what I was doing in Genford wasn’t working, not really, because of how that all ended. I grimace. Maybe he’s right, but I still need to be prepared for these tests, to do well on them. And there isn’t enough time to do everything I have to do and still get as much rest as Edward says I should.

“But I have to – “

“Why?”

“So I’m prepared – “

Edward shrugs. “It’s a pass-fail grading system. Your results don’t matter as long as you pass.”

“Easy for you to say, given you’re going to get top marks in everything without even revising.”

“Tallulah, I spent years revising this stuff before I ever came to the Academy. That’s not a fair comparison.”

No. It isn’t. Edward is the best friend I ever had, but sometimes I wish he was a little less of a prodigy just so I wouldn’t be able to make those unfair comparisons. “Exactly,” I say. “That’s why I need to put more time into this now, because I didn’t have those years to do that.”

He sighs. “Okay. How about this: you will work better in the tests if you’re well-rested and not sick to death of revision, and that will probably make more of a difference than whether you got through that one more practice paper.”

I wonder, not for the first time, how Edward became so sensible about things like this when his father devotes his entire life to work. I can’t imagine Lord Blackthorn ever taking the luxury of a day off.

“Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll rewrite the timetable.”

“Remember to build in time for figuring out that releasing-magic-into-the-ambience enchantment. You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?”

I laugh. “I would never think that of you.”

In the end I hand in the essay to Sam before going back to the City Library. It’s already three days past the normal deadline, and I should be prioritising revision; I can go back and research more on my own terms later, now that I have that pass the librarian gave me. Edward mutters something about inadequate security procedures when he sees that, but doesn’t give me the full lecture, thankfully.

It's easily the longest essay I’ve ever written, which is saying something considering what I normally do to Sam’s minimum page counts.

“This is going to take quite some time to mark,” he complains, but I think he’s happy about it. I hope he is, anyway; I feel a little bad about giving him a load of extra work by doing this.