***

“So, I can use all the magic I want now!” I say. It’s a bit worrying that I missed that so much. I spent about ten days limiting my own magic, and it felt like having both hands tied.

But who cares, now I can Lie again. I changed my appearance a bit, so I don’t have to worry about security cameras. I made myself look older, and made my hair white--it was cool when I tried it at the club. I even gave myself those obnoxious metallic looking tattoos popular in Landfall, saying gynophile and engineer. I hate drawing real tattoos on myself, but it’s fun to try fake ones.

“Be careful,” Iketek says, stern. “It’s harder to hide more powerful magic. And Lies can still be noticed by other means than magic. ThauCon has algorithms scanning surveillance cameras for inconsistencies.”

“You’re right, I’ll be super cautious,” I say, then look around at the street full of people in thermal vests. “Do you think I could make everyone look like giant penguins? Even to themselves? That would be awesome.”

Iketek looks at me as if she couldn’t tell if I’m serious.

“Just ignore xem,” Daravoi says, “xe’s never serious with that kind of bullshit. Except, well, sometimes. Just in case, Kore, don’t do the penguin thing, ever. Also, that hair is stupid.”

“You’re no fun, and unlike yours, my hair is cool,” I say. I didn’t actually mean to do the penguin illusion, but the more I think about it, the funnier it sounds.

Could I really pull off something like that? How would I make a Lie where everyone’s a penguin? I think of Lies as glimpses of possible worlds, but there’s no possible world where everybody is a penguin, it makes no sense. And yet, I think I could make such a Lie. What does that mean about my powers?

Iketek glowers at me. “Try not to be stupid. Especially in front of my associate,” she says, as if for some reason she doesn’t trust me to behave sensibly.

“Why?” I ask. “He’s a lord of the underworld who’ll kill us for any disrespect? That’s so cool! A real criminal!”

Then I think about the three gangsters, about the drawn knife, and the sliced fingers, and feel queasy. “Actually, no, I think I’ve met enough real criminals.”

“He’s a very real criminal,” Iketek snorts, sounding weirdly contemptuous, “but not the violent kind, admittedly. And the issue isn’t that he would take offense. It’s that your silliness would encourage him.”

“Well, I have the perfect plan, if we need to be serious,” I say, confident. “Daravoi does the thinking, and I do the speaking.”

Iketek pinches the bridge of her nose, but says nothing.

She leads us through a maze of frozen canals and fancy stone buildings, in the ancient center of the city. People skate over the thick ice, laughing - ice-skating combines cold and physical exercise, the two worst things in the world, so I’ve no idea why people call it fun.

“Also, don’t touch the Else without warning,” Iketek says, sounding anxious. “My associate deals with mages often enough, and takes precautions against them. You could trigger very dangerous wards.”

She stops in front of a narrow stone building facing the river.

I have a vague notion that property in this neighborhood is super expensive. Which is weird, why would anyone want a cramped, humid old house instead of a mansion in the hills like my moms’? My parents are evil rich women, but at least they’re sensible.

Iketek presses a doorbell, reading Sanvothal ltd - Acquisition Consultant. The door is wooden, painted a cheerful green, but the lock seems very new and there’s no handle, only a chip scanner.

“What’s an acquisition consultant?” I ask.

“According to him, it’s a nice way to say thief. He finds it hilarious.” Iketek says, grim.

She scans her wrist over the reader, and the door unlocks.

The building’s exterior was dark, weathered old stone, but inside it’s all polished white marble, glass and - thank the Officers - good heating. We leave our coats in the lockers and climb the narrow stair.

We go past a couple of doors with boring signs like real estate attorney and private risk manager, until Iketek knocks on the last office. The door quickly slides open, revealing a single-room study with river-facing windows.

The office looks monumentally boring - framed degrees and certificates, a bookcase with pretentious paper books, a sleek metal desk occupied by three different laptops. I don’t know what I expected from an underworld fence, but something cooler, I guess.

The man behind the desk isn’t what I expected, either. I pictured some brooding old man wearing a black mask. Or maybe a cold, soft-spoken young businessman with distant eyes, like Iketek.

Instead, he’s a jovial-looking man in his forties, tall and thin, with straw-blond hair and a far too wide smile. He has unobtrusive tattoos on the cheeks, stating only married and entrepreneur.

“Iketek, my girl! I’m delighted to meet your new friends!” He greets us.

He pushes back his chair, stands up so quickly that in his place I’d faint, and walks around the desk, getting a little too close to us and offering his hand. His eyes are so black you can barely see the iris, and they dart between me and Daravoi.

“Nice to meet you, young persons,” he says, still beaming. “Iketek talked very highly about you! I’m overjoyed to meet you in the flesh!”

He speaks so fast, even I can’t put a word in edgewise.

“Forgive my excitement,” he goes on, “but even in my line of duty, it’s not every day you get the opportunity to hire mages. Let alone mages of great and unusual talents! You must be Korentis, right?”

He looks at me, his smile friendly, but his eyes are careful, as if he was calculating just how much money he could sell me for.

“That’s, uh, right,” I say. “Nice to meet you, mister…?”

He laughs. “So proper! You look every bit the awkward university student. Great catch, Iket, you’re always wonderful. But since I don’t like giving out fake names, I won’t give you any name at all! Ahah! You can call me the Prop Master, if you need. Or mister Sanvothal, if you like shameless lies. Which you probably do.”

Iketek snorts and rolls her eyes.

I like him. So pointlessly dramatic! I want to grow up like that.

“You want us for a job,” Daravoi says. So sadly pragmatic, he has no sense of theater. “And you have a book we need.”

The Prop Master nods gravely, raising a finger. “Not just a book. The book. Lord Keidesek’s Art of the Veil. One of my most prized possessions! And surely an invaluable asset for young mages seeking to make their own way in the world.”

Daravoi squints his eyes. “How much does it cost? Maybe we could just buy it.”

The man laughs.

“I doubt it,” he says, shaking his head. “You didn’t tell them anything about the book, Iket?”

“They didn’t ask,” she says, with a small shrug, “and I’m sure you’ll be more than happy to enlighten them.”

His smile widens, and he claps his hand. “Oh, I love introducing newcomers to our happy hidden world! There’s something special in helping people take that first, sweet step into our game of shadows. So, my young guests, you want to know how much the book costs. Well, simple answer first - a million credits.”

“What?” I blurt out, at the same time as Daravoi grumbles: “Bullshit, just say it’s not for sale.”

“Half a million credits? That’s… more than two hundred thousand ice-cream cups!” I point out. Wait, I checked how much poor people's stuff costs. “Or two million liters of milk!”

“Oh, my sandy-haired friend, it’s also not for sale,” The Prop Master chuckles. “I like favors better than money, and I’m not shy about it. But the price isn’t exaggerated. Yes, a million credits is a great deal of money - you could get even more milk than that, Korentis, since you’d be buying in bulk! But you must understand that you aren’t asking for a normal book.”

With a deliberate, dramatic gesture--I should really take notes--he walks to the library, and produces a thick brown volume. Case studies of property management litigation - year 2657.

He looks at me, then at Daravoi.

“Just to be clear,” he says, “trying to take the book without my permission would be a monumentally stupid idea, and since you’re smart, capable mages, you won’t ever consider that. Am I right?”

“Why would I want a book about property litigation?” I say. “It sounds boring.”

The Prop Master laughs and doesn’t answer me.

I’m pretty sure the book isn’t about property litigation at all. There’s something different about it - when he slams it on the desk, it’s like the whole world trembles. The man carried it easily enough, but I get the weird feeling it must be heavy - not heavy like a thick tome, heavy like stone, heavy like mountains.

“Iketek, will you do the honors?” The Prop Master says, pushing the book toward her with a flourish.

“For the record, I think the theatrics are unnecessary,” she answers, with the tone of someone going through an old argument.

The man chuckles. “And that is the reason you’ll never be a good Liar.”

Iketek doesn’t retort, she walks to the desk and slides a finger along the book’s cover.

“I claim the gift of magic,” she says, her words clear and formal. “I claim the Art of the Veil.”

A golden spark trails her finger, and the cover ripples and changes - it was a Lie, I realize, and I itch to look into the Else, to see how it works. I have no idea how to make a Lie that sticks this closely to an object. But Iketek told me not to Reach into the Else without warning, and I’m trying to practice not being an idiot.

The book has a black cover now - pitch black, darker than anything should be, as if made of night. There’s a golden symbol embossed on it, double doors, thrown open. Below, two lines of golden text reveal themselves.

ARCHMAGE KEIDESEK’S TREATISE ON MAGIC

THE ART OF THE VEIL

“Cool,” Daravoi says, “still not worth a million.”

I’m thinking the total opposite. I want that book, I want to touch it and read it, I want like I never wanted anything before in my life - but I remember the aquamarine gem and bite my tongue to stifle those impulses.

The Prop Master looks at me with a wry smile, and opens the book, carefully, as if it could crumble to dust - or it might bite. I get a glimpse of pages thick with text and diagrams, and otherworldly colors flash in my mind just by glancing at them.

“This is not one of the Council books,” The Prop Master says, “those are toys, produced on the cheap, to turn young mages into good Agency lap dogs as quickly as possible. They’re written by two-bit mages, who worry more about what students must not learn than what they should learn.

“Neither is this a cheap list of party tricks like the Faceless Path, a quick guide for mages of little talent to develop some basic proficiency before they get themselves killed. The Art of the Veil deals with the deep secrets of the Else. It’s the guide to the Narrow Path, to real power and immortality, for those who dare walk it.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“He spins a lot of tales,” Iketek says. “But this part is true. Try and touch it.”

The Prop Master offers me the book - the page is titled to make a Lie that will change light, but not thought.

I skim the text - it refers to knots I don’t know and concepts I don’t understand. I should probably be cautious, but I can’t help myself, and put my open palm on the book.

I get a vision, clear as day, so strong I think I’m actually in the Else - except this Else is blood-red, and Lies look like splitting tree branches instead of spirals and stained glass. But even if it’s different from the way I see the Else, it feels the same, and I understand with perfect clarity how to knot light, to show a world that isn’t, but can be imagined - it’s so obvious! I’d need to learn the glyphs to anchor it, and try it, but…

“That’s enough for your free sample,” the Prop Master says, and pulls the book away from me, gently. “Do you want to try, too, mister Eich-Kal?”

Daravoi gasps a little. It takes me a moment to realize that must be his surname - he never told me.

“How do you know my clan?” He asks, curt.

The Prop Master raises his hands. “Nothing creepy or supernatural, I promise! But that’s what your arm tattoo says, right?”

Only a few centimeters of Daravoi’s left arm tattoo show past his sleeves, and he covers them up, fast. But he relaxes a little. He looks at the Prop Master with something akin to appreciation.

“You don’t look Kalestran,” he comments.

“I’m not,” the Prop Master answers, jovially. “But I’ve traveled a lot, and I’m curious about people. I’m not here to scam you or hurt you, Daravoi Eich-Kal, Ruin-mage. I simply think I can offer you a good deal. Now, do you want to try touching the book, too?”

Daravoi looks at me.

“Is it good?”

“It’s fantastic,” I say, even if I have a vague notion that openly praising the merchandise is not a good way to bargain. But this is not a bargain - it never was. We owe Iketek, she’s obviously closer to the Prop Master than she made it sound, and their offer is take-or-leave.

“A lot of books are good and they don’t cost a million credits, admittedly,” the Prop Master interjects. “But you must understand how a book like the Art of the Veil is made. A powerful mage can create a stable, enduring vision of the Else and Bind it to paper. But only an extremely skilled one can craft it in such a way that a student - no matter their specific talent - can understand how the spell works simply by touching the paper.

“This book was made by the Black Library, the greatest of the Hidden Schools. At least eight Grandmasters - one specialist for every Path that it teaches - had to work on it for many months, possibly years. It’s like an illuminated manuscript. Actually, that’s how the making of illuminated manuscripts began… but I digress.

“The point is, the Art of the Veil would be atrociously pricey because of the work involved in creating it alone. Now consider that printing, owning, buying, or selling it carries a death sentence, that ThauCon is very active in destroying every copy, and the Black Library keeps most of them for itself. Consider all this information, and you’ll realize my price is the best you’ll get anywhere - short of joining the Hidden Schools yourself.”

The guy can make a good sales pitch. I should take notes, he managed to transform the book into the door of a whole forbidden world.

That’s how a good Lie works, I’m beginning to understand. You don’t try to make people believe something flat-out wrong, you just lean on what is true, and what they want - and you make it bigger, more important.

Daravoi doesn’t catch the beauty of it all, as usual. His eyes narrow. “Owning the book is a death sentence, you say?” he asks, unable to mask the worry in his voice..

The Prop Master’s smile fades for a split second, as if he took off his overly enthusiastic mask and hastily put it back. “I want to be clear about that,” he says. “This is not a deal you should make lightly. You’ll do a serious crime for me, and in exchange, you’ll receive a priceless book - one that you won’t need, unless you want to live as rogue mages, and actively pursue magical power.

“Both the crime, and your reward, will be your death if ThauCon catches you. There is no re-ed and no silver tattoos, for those who read the Art of the Veil.”

Daravoi clenches his fists and takes a deep breath. “Well. We owe Iketek. We can’t just walk out.”

“You can,” Iketek says, forceful. “I told you I’d teach you to hide your magic for free, if you considered our offer. It wasn’t a trap, you owe us nothing.. But if you want the Art of the Veil, it’s not a way to edge your bets. It teaches the Narrow Road – the way to great magical power. You asked for this - but you must be really sure this is what you want.”

“I know,” Daravoi says, and his voice pitches up a bit. “I know. It’s just… one day I was running for my life. Then I was scrambling to survive. There were times I couldn’t even eat! And now we’re talking about a million credits like it’s a normal thing! I’m going to become some kind of magical super criminal, and I’m not sure how that happened. But it happened.”

I know that a large part of what happened to Daravoi is me. I encouraged him to keep pursuing magic. And I attracted ThauCon’s attention. He subconsciously pats a pocket - the one where he carries a precious stone, I suspect.

This time, I’ll try to avoid being shitty, instead of apologizing later.

I turn to the Prop Master. “I’m the one you actually need, right?” I ask him. The thought is strangely flattering. “You want a Liar. Daravoi can stay out of it. Could you get him a fake identity? I can do more jobs to pay for that.”

“Can I get him a fake ID?” The Prop Master laughs, cheerful again. “If it’s not legal, I can get it, that’s my motto! But honestly, you’ll need fake identities for the job anyway, they’re included in the deal. If Mr Eich-Kal desires a quiet disappearance after our agreement is resolved, I’ll be happy to provide options.”

Daravoi looks dazed. He opens his mouth, then raises his hands and speaks.

“Unmaker’s tits, wait a moment, I didn’t say I want out!” He turns to face me. “Kore, you’d get yourself killed in a minute without me. But can we at least know what this job is before we take it?”

I suppress a smile. I don’t want my idiocy to put Daravoi in danger - but I don’t like the idea of parting ways with him, either. He’s annoyingly pragmatic and a poor conversation partner. But he may also be the only friend I ever had, so I don’t get to be picky.

“Of course,” the Prop Master says, sketching a little bow. “you can, and should, learn about the job before you accept. So, here we go.”

He clears his throat, and he starts speaking in what sounds like a practiced pitch.

“As you surely know,” he says, “the University of Rakavdon is built over a Precursor ruin. In the last two years, the archaeological excavations progressed for the first time in decades - there was some improvement in machinery, I seem to understand, and some new funding.”

He looks proud, as if he were funding the excavations himself.

“The artifacts they’re discovering are unbelievable! I had the opportunity to handle a few relics myself, there was this amazing contraption that made light move backward in time, you could… but I digress.”

He cuts the sentence with a gesture, and now I’ll die of curiosity about that relic for the rest of my life. I’m pretty sure that was intentional.

“Anyway,” he goes on, “a client of mine wishes to acquire a specific relic - one recently excavated, which didn’t attract substantial academic interest, and is likely collecting dust on some shelf in the University vault. The client insists that a mage is required for the job, because apparently you have to look into the Else to identify the item.”

“What does it do?” I ask.

The Prop Master grins. “Do I look like the kind of businessman who asks questions? I’m told that it’s not dangerous to handle, and I’m inclined to believe that, otherwise the University would have sent it to ThauCon or the Council as soon as they yanked it out of the dirt. That’s all I know about it.”

I chew on my lips, considering. “So,” I say. “I pretend to be a student, sneak into this vault, grab a relic, bring it to you, and for that I get a book that costs way more than my skin?”

“It won’t be that easy,” Iketek interjects. “While the relic isn’t locked in a high-security location, access to the Vault is strictly regulated - I verified that myself. You’ll probably need a real, or well forged, authorization to get inside, and yet another authorization to take the relic out, or find a way to smuggle it without being detected.”

“I see why you need a Liar!” I grin. “This will be a walk in the park! Should we go immediately? I bet we can be done with it by the evening.”

Daravoi facepalms, and Iketek looks worried.

“I should point out…” she starts, but I raise my hands. Why does everyone believe I’m a complete idiot?

“Chill, I was kidding,” I say. “We’ll need at least a week, I bet. Will we get student covert identities? Oh! Can we be roomies? I always wanted that!”

***

“An apartment! Like, this whole apartment, for us? Thi is insane!” Daravoi says, looking around in the small flat, like he’s in front of the Last Empress’ treasure.

The Prop Master rented for us this three-room flat five minutes away from the University - in a student-infested neighborhood, as Iketek described it.

“Yeah, cool, but who gets the single room?” I ask.

“I do, obviously,” Iketek says, “because I’m older, my cover story doesn’t involve the University, and I’m not going to share with either of you. I’m sure Korentis’ room will have a pile of dirty laundry by the evening.”

I look at the tiny double room - the whole apartment is smaller than my mothers’ sitting room, and yet it seems a ridiculous luxury to me. A house where I can do whatever I want, without moms yelling at me? And I live here with kind-of-friends? I feel giddy at all this freedom.

Daravoi looks around, and after his initial enthusiasm, he suddenly looks worried.

“New ID chips,” Daravoi says, looking at his wrist, still slightly scarred. “The rent of a full apartment, plus whatever trick he had to set up to enlist Korentis as a transfer student. Smiley guy is spending a lot of money on us.”

“He wasn’t lying about the book. At least, not completely.” Iketek says. “These are minor operational expenses, compared to the value of the prize you’ve asked for.”

She takes her trolley into the single room, and we follow her, because she’s the boss. Also, I’m curious to see what’s in her luggage.

Her single room looks enormous after super-cheap hotels and my hole in the tube. There’s some cheap plywood furniture – a wardrobe, an ink-stained desk, a chest of drawers.

Iketek takes from her trolley a thick futon, a foldable laundry basket, and an ominous-looking black bag that she carefully puts on the desk.

Then she starts methodically moving well-folded clothes into the drawers. There are a couple fancy dresses, like the one she wore at the Moonbreaker, but most are unremarkable tunics, leggings, and a few shirts. Almost everything is black, sometimes with golden accents.

She wrinkles her nose as she picks a single sock left in the bottom drawer, and with a gesture and a flash of golden light she sends it flying into the laundry basket. She’s painfully tidy and organized. She’ll love living with me!

“Are you going to stand and watch me for the rest of the day?” Iketek asks. “You have your own room, you know.”

“I was just thinking,” Daravoi says, “the Prop Master’s client must be paying a lot of money, if he pays for all of this – not even counting our final payment. What are we stealing that is worth that much?”

Iketek makes a dismissive gesture. “They say crime doesn’t pay, but true or not for regular crime, magical crime pays a lot.”

“Cool, until ThauCon catches you,” Daravoi grumbles.

“There’s that.” Iketek concedes. “Plus, money doesn’t mean that much, when you can’t spend it, You’ll have to move often, and always keep a low profile. ThauCon isn’t the only threat. The Syndicates are weak in Vorok, but their presence is growing, and they can’t tolerate mages outside their control. The Hidden Schools protect their members, but don’t like rogue mages, which can attract attention.”

“As long as you can spend it on a roof and food, money means a lot to me, thank you very much,” Daravoi says, gloomy, “so I guess I’ll take it.”

“You barely need money for basic necessities, once you learn magic,” Iketek says. “Money makes everything easier, though. And of course, it buys you nice things if you’re careful. But you’ll have to learn to be careful, spending too much money attracts attention. Anyway, now go to your room before I feed you both to a demon.”

“Can you really do that? It sounds cool! How would you…” I start.

Iketek turns to look at me, with familiar exasperation on her face, and Daravoi drags me out by a wrist.

“She wouldn’t really summon a demon to eat me, she needs us!”, I point out.

“Probably true,” Daravoi says. “But you know, you could still not pester her? We should try to get along, given she’s a very powerful mage, and also, apparently, our flatmate.”

“Oh, right,” I say. “Know what? When I go from endearingly annoying to making-people-angry annoying, just punch me.”

“Oh, that would feel so good,” Daravoi sighs. “But if I start punching you for being annoying, I’ll never stop. Just try to… tone it down a bit, ok?”

I tense. Yeah, that’s what people always tell me, why can’t you just be a little less you? But I won’t tell you when, figure it out by yourself, to spice things up a bit and load you with anxiety.

But I know it’s pointless to argue, and I was being cheeky with Iketek, so I shrug it off. Better to forget about it before it spoils my good mood.

We go inside our room, which is a little larger than Iketek’s, so we’ll be able to sleep without kicking each other’s shins.

“Don’t we get, uh, a bed?” I ask. “Or maybe even two beds?”

Iketek’s room didn’t have one, but she’s from the Riverlands, they’re too fancy for real beds.

“You’ll impersonate landfaller students,” Iketek says, from her room. “So you’ll sleep on futons like civilized people.”

“I guess it beats living in a hole in the tube,” I grudgingly admit, “and beats by far living with my moms.”

It’s weird, because I’m vaguely aware that I used to sleep in a room twice as large and ten times fancier. But that was never my room, it was a space my moms’ allowed me to inhabit. This one, as tiny and cheap as it is, is mine. There are even a couple of shelves, I could fill them with comics! And wait, no one stops me from hanging posters on the walls. What kind of posters would I hang? Am I even the poster-hanging kind of person, given the opportunity?

I feel a moment of dizziness, like a vertigo, as I realize that I’ve no idea what to do with a personal room, now that I have it.

“We’ll have to write a schedule for chores,” Daravoi mumbles, ever focused on the boring stuff. “I’ve seen what happens to a place you live in, even for a few days, and I’m not having it.”

I put a hand around his shoulders, and grin. “Oh, don’t be so boring,” I say. “First, we must celebrate! To keep a convincing lie, we must believe it. Let’s go out and do student things. Like, get high and throw books around. Steal ancient relics from vaults. Student things, right?”

“The one student thing you’ll do is study,” Iketek’s voice startles me. She’s standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. “Korentis, you must be able to pass for a second-year student, at least in casual conversation. And while Daravoi is enlisted as a freshman, he would need to be at the very least knowledgeable about his curriculum.”

“Hey,” I say, wagging my finger at her. “I know plenty about precursor history. Let’s focus on getting wasted.”

Iketek clicks her tongue. “I feel,” she says, “this will be a difficult job.”

I wonder if I should act responsible and shit, but Daravoi laughs. “Korentis found you at the nightclub by getting high and doing creepy magic shit. You knew what you were buying.”

“Fair,” Iketek concedes. “Well, we need to go shopping for your futons and some housing items. Once we do that, we can go out and celebrate in moderation.”