05 - A learning experience

“The Else is fundamentally harmful to humans. The Veil protects us from the horrors and the madness beyond.

The first and most important lesson any mage must learn is control: to enter the Else only when they choose it, to stay as briefly as possible, to channel as little as possible. And of course, to use magic only when strictly necessary.”

* Introduction to Thaumological Manipulation

With Daravoi’s lessons, making money at the expense of law-abiding citizens is so easy it’s barely even fun.

In return for my magic lessons, he taught me all kinds of useful things. How to talk to poor people without sounding too much of a rich brat. How to move through the city without needing an ID chip, and avoiding most cameras - basically, you should keep to the filthy neighborhoods.

Most importantly, he taught me to set up an anonymous gray account, the kind that stores money and doesn’t need an ID chip, you just access it with your phone and a password. Having a way to actually keep money helps a lot. Parting people from their possessions is so much easier in bulk than one by one possession by possession.

After a couple of weeks and a dozen thefts under his supervision, I feel like I got the hang of it. So, when I realize it’s my twentieth birthday, I decide it’s time to steal something serious. It will make for a good present to myself, and will show Daravoi how good I’ve gotten.

The first step to stealing something really valuable, of course, is looking like I fit with the rich people. So I use some of my ill-gotten gains to buy myself a set of boring, well-fitting clothes, which I hate.

I like cool clothes, and I can’t wait to buy more - but my taste for clothes draws a lot of attention. In order to look like a harmless, boring rich kid I have to wear the kind of thing mom would approve of. After all, it’s rule four: be boring.

As I shop for clothes, going straight for the agender section, I realize that with a different face tattoo, and shopping from a different aisle, I could easily pass for a boy, or a girl. But for some reason, the idea of even looking like a different gender gives me a sudden stab of discomfort, and I keep to my section of the store.

In the end, I get a white seamless shirt with lilac decorations suspiciously reminiscent of military ranks, and boring-blue pants, plus a long white jacket which is actually nice in the abominable cold. It’s two-hundred and thirty credits, which I actually pay - I can afford them, and stealing from a fancy-ish shop would be a pointless risk.

I look at myself in the mirror - I look so respectable I want to slap myself in the face. Looking like this, stealing will be so easy, it should be a crime.

I go back into the streets, ready to steal myself a birthday present.

I still don’t have a working ID biochip - Daravoi says getting a fake one is really costly, and you need the right connections. That makes getting into any fancy place a hassle. But one blessing of this cold, boring city is that it’s full of foreign students, and some countries, especially outside Karesia, don’t use standard chips. So a lot of places don’t do ID scans, or don’t push the issue if I act confused when mine doesn’t work.

On the way to my big prize, I check my reflection on the shop windows in the fancy street. I reach into the Veil, and Bind a small lie - one where my hair is platinum blonde instead of jet black. It’s a small lie - I could have just dyed them this way. It’s barely even magic, more of a time saver.

Then I add a lie where I have green eyes instead of brown, and they’re rounder, without the epicanthic fold. Finally, I make my skin darker - light brown, so I could still pass for Vorokan, but I’m more credible as a foreigner. That takes a bit more effort, since those are birth traits - but it’s a small enough change that I can pull the right me through the Else.

I look at the young person reflecting in the glass. Xe’s still me, of course - or a version of me that could have been. But most people would say we’re pretty different, and the eye change is enough to fool facial recognition software, I think.

Happy with my disguise, I walk into the jewelry store. I wouldn’t even have thought about stealing jewels, before meeting Daravoi. Jewels are shiny, some have beautiful colors, but in the end, they’re pretentious, and that’s just something I can’t condone. But now, I have the wonderful option of fencing the jewels for sweet, sweet money, and buy myself something nice.

I step inside, scan my wrist, and pretend not to notice when the light blinks red and no working ID found flashes on the screen. The shopkeeper looks at me, but I just smile and greet him, affecting a slight Golden Coast accent. He frowns, but doesn’t challenge me.

I scan the exhibited items for a while. There’s a lot of golden bracelets and diamond thingies. Why do people even like diamonds? They’re so boring. Emerald and sapphires, I can get behind, they look good. But diamonds are just self-important coal.

The shopkeeper doesn’t seem to mind me as I browse the showcases, whistling a little tune. Finally, I point at a necklace - it had been my objective all along. With a large, light blue aquamarine cut into a teardrop shape, I felt like it should be mine as soon as I saw it from the street.

“Hello,” I say, smiling “I’m looking to buy something for my boyfriend. I think he’d love that one, it matches his eyes.”

The shopkeeper looks at me suspiciously for a moment. It’s not new to me - most people find me either charming or weird and suspicious, without much middle ground. With adults, it’s often charming, with peers it’s a coin toss. But this guy has frowning lines all over his face and probably found his parents suspicious the moment he was born.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“It’s an excellent item,” he says slowly. “The chain is white gold, finely crafted. And the gem is a twenty carat natural aquamarine, with few inclusions. It is also, I should mention, rather expensive.”

He says the last part in an apologetic tone - good, he’d be more hostile if I didn’t look like the kind of person who at least could be a buyer.

I wave my hand and smile. “It’s his birthday. Money won’t be an issue.”

Another perk of having a famous university in the city - some of the students are filthy rich kids who want a cool-sounding degree in Precursor Studies. So I’m probably not the first twenty-years-old who tried to buy outrageously expensive items.

For some reason, I must make a good impression of a spoiled rich brat, even though my moms are barely millionaires. Or maybe billionaires, I never get that straight. Anyway, the shopkeeper forces a smile and walks to me.

“There are a few legalities involved in such a transaction,” he says, sounding apologetic again. He’s probably thinking of my ID chip, and looking for the least confrontational way to make me re-scan it.

“I’ll have my assistant take care of it,” I say, which my sister says all the time. “But first I’d like to have a better look at the stone, I’ve not made up my mind yet.”

The man nods, carefully puts his thumb on the lock, and the glass slides open. He inputs a physical password on the stand holding the necklace, and then shows it to me, keeping the slender golden chain firmly in his hands.

The azure stone glints in the sun - it finally stopped snowing - and wait, it’s actually beautiful, I take back all my mean thoughts about gems. It’s shaped like a teardrop, of a blue so perfect it doesn’t seem real, like those pure, frigid lakes up in the mountains. No - like the Else.

I want it.

My plan was to swap it with a fake - I bought a cheap necklace with a vaguely similar pendant made of glass. But I didn’t realize the jeweler wouldn’t hand it to me, even for a second, before I paid. Grab and run isn’t an option - there’s a double door that doesn’t open automatically, and the glass is thick. I could probably break it with Elsefire, but that would be crass.

The smart thing to do would be to say thanks, walk out, admit I’m an idiot, and go back to filching mobile phones. But Daravoi would make fun of me.

Also, a flicker of annoyance goes through me - I’m a mage, I can literally bend reality, and I want that stone. Why shouldn’t I have it?

That gives me the idea. I don’t need to even pretend to pay. If it works with cricket burgers, it should work with precious stones.

I reach into the Else. Reality becomes like a drawing, no, like the stained glass in an old cathedral. At the center there’s the blue stone, and other realities, worlds that could, should be, unfold around the real one, swaying in a beautiful blue, just like that of the gem.

In some realities, I actually walked in here with a blue-eyed boy. In some, Mama is with me, and she smiles as I take the stone - come on, that’s just unrealistic. She wouldn’t buy me regular presents, let alone absolutely unreasonable ones.

But I need one where the stone is already mine, as it should be. I find a lie almost like our world - except we already did all the bureaucracy, and my chip scanned green, and I already paid a disgusting amount of money.

I pull that world closer. It’s not very different - nothing changes, visually.

“I’m happy the payment is confirmed,” I say, “I’ll take the necklace.”

The jeweler frowns, looking dazed.

I’m not really a mind-mage. I can’t make him do things, but I can affect his perceptions, and even memories to some extent. Something here isn’t working, though.

“Of course,” he says, confused. “Just a second. I’ll check… a minor issue,” he says.

He closes his eyes - he must have a Stemlink implant.

My magic flows thick, and whatever he’ll check, he’ll perceive what I want him to.

Of course the payment went through. My identity was confirmed, I’m called Velisys Anderen. It’s all right.

“This is… unusual,” he says. “A necklace worth over thirty thousand credits should use our delivery service. It’s an insurance matter. And honestly, for your safety I simply can’t let you walk in the street with something this expensive. I’m sorry, young ser, but I’ll have to…”

Thirty thousand credits? Wow. I thought it was like one thousand, tops.

Oh, fuck this. I’ll have that stone.

I reach with my whole hand into the Veil, feeling the Else burn my fingertips. I see my own eyes flare with blue light, reflected on the stone. The gem is the exact color of my magic, I realize, that must be why I like it.

“Don’t you remember?” I say, “We agreed you’d hand it to me. It’s for the birthday surprise, I need it now. And don’t worry, I’ll hide it. I’m not afraid of muggers.”

The Lie is weak, it barely makes sense, but it doesn’t matter, if I pour enough magic in the words. I feel the Else thrum in my bones, burn in my fingers until it hurts, and realize I’m using way too much power. This is dangerous. I’m seeing so much blue, it’s like being underwater.

“Of course,” the jeweler says, weakly, then with slow, sleepwalk-like movements he puts the priceless gem in a small box with the company logo and hands it to me.

“A pleasure doing business with you,” I say, smiling, and then walk away, fast, because I must let the Else go.

The moment he opens the outer door, I let the lie slip.

It’s like waking from a dream. The blue light fades from my sight, and the many possible worlds collapse into a single one.

What the fuck did I just do? He’ll realize that I scammed him in a minute, and worse, he’ll know that I did it with magic! And the stone is worth… fuck, I don’t even know what you can buy with thirty thousand credits!

My stomach clenches in panic. This will attract the Agency, this might make the news, this was beyond reckless. Also, my hand hurts, and I’m tired, strangely tired.

In the biting cold, I try to put my gloves back on, and I see my fingertips look like translucent blue glass, melding seamlessly with the flesh.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I give up on subtlety, and I run to the place where Daravoi is waiting for me. But something is wrong. I’m exhausted, as if I had run a marathon. So tired I can’t think, I can only walk, and every step is more difficult.

Finally I see him - his solid, reassuring mass pushing the crowd away, as he runs to me. People look at us, but it doesn’t matter. He can help. He will.

“Kore, what the fuck?” He asks, rushing to support me. My legs just crumple, and he leans to support me.

“Sorry,” I say. “I think I fucked up. But I got a really cool stone.”

He looks around, and I realize that he could just run away and leave me here, until the police come - and then the Men in Silver. He doesn’t owe me shit.

“Fuck, are those sirens for you?” He asks. “Black Liar’s dick, you overstretched yourself, idiot. Lean on me. I can carry you, you’re just bones and weirdness. But make it look like you’re walking. And know that you’re a fucking idiot.”