“Full readings, then,” she says. “Tell me, what School were you using this morning?”

“Siaril for animation and shield, Malaina for counterspell and force-spell – that was the system I tried, but the order you called the spells didn’t let me consistently keep up that pattern.”

“That was deliberate,” Electra says. “But I meant after that. In the flow state.”

Edward pauses. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Do you recall any difference in the way you were casting different spells? When you were simultaneously casting, for instance?”

“…no,” he says slowly. “But I assumed that was just not being consciously aware of my spellwork, not… you’re saying the boundaries between the Schools aren’t as strict as they often seem, aren’t you? That at a deeper level…” Edward’s eyes are alight with excitement.

“Be careful,” says Electra. “Remember what I told you in our first lesson?”

I remember that lesson well, but I’m not sure what specific part of it Electra is referring to. Edward is, though: “Necessary illusion – but I could – “

“Do you know how your great-great-great-aunt Lucrezia died?” Electra asks casually.

I haven’t heard of a Lucrezia Blackthorn who did anything significant. Edward knows the name at least, because I see him suddenly tense. “I was told it was of illness,” he says, words precise. “But you have heard differently? How?”

“It is… a cautionary tale told among certain circles, and one which you will hear before you leave this room.”

Edward tenses further – I reach out and touch his hand, letting him know that I’m here if he needs me – but all he says is “Tell it, then.”

“Lucrezia was… extraordinary, even at a young age and even for a Blackthorn. She refused to wait until her sixteenth birthday to become a magician. Her parents wanted her to wait until she was more mature, refused to arrange the Arsinth ritual for her. So after she turned thirteen, she took matters into her own hands and left home for the nearest spirit-forest.”

In the hopes to persuade it to grant her the power of Latira. There have always been those desperate enough for magic to take that risk, but spirit-forests are infamously picky about who they grant their blessing to. And those they don't take a liking to have been known to meet unfortunate ends deep within the forest.

“I don’t need that kind of cautionary tale,” Edward says. “So presumably she didn’t die in the forest?”

“She did not,” Electra agrees. “She was special enough that the spirit-forest granted her its favour, and she returned home a magician, just as she wanted. Her family were furious, of course, but there was nothing they could do but accept it. By the time she was sixteen she was a brilliant magician. It was her creative thinking that was her great strength: she never did anything the way it had always been done without questioning it and finding her own answers. She had her own unique way of working magic.”

I’m not sure telling Edward this story is cautionary. I can see that he’s madly jealous of Lucrezia, that he would give almost anything to have her talent. A wicked part of me is satisfied that even Edward has someone better than him, even if she died over a century ago.

“And she turned sixteen, and came into her second School. And she began to experiment. She knew herself and her methods so well that she could enter a flow state as easily as breathing and always come out the other side alive. So once she did that with her second School, she reached much the same conclusion as you did. What is widely believed about the Schools is an illusion, and there was no reason she should not dispense with it altogether.”

Yes. That is the point of Electra’s story.

“She was warned, of course she was. But she’d been warned about flow states and drawing on too much magic all her life, and none of those warnings had ever had merit. So she didn’t listen. Her work revolutionised magical theory, building a completely new system of intent-based magic beyond any previous attempt. And no, you cannot read it, because there are no copies in existence. They have all been burnt.”

Book-burning, to me, is one of the greatest evils there is (despite the uncharitable thoughts I may have had about certain textbooks). It’s never really occurred to me before now that there can be knowledge that is dangerous enough that its destruction is truly necessary.

“Because of what happened to her,” I say. “Because if anyone found it and tried to replicate her work, the same could happen to them.”

Electra nods. Edward winces, but he’s not quite as on edge as he was before Electra began telling this story. “What was it?” he asks.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“What do you think?” Electra asks.

“Burnout,” Edward guesses.

“Of a kind rather more literal than I expect you’re thinking,” Electra agrees. “She was working on a new ritual. Her little brother, your great-great-grandfather, was watching – she always had a soft spot for him. He saw how much magic the ritual demanded. And she’d given too much of herself to magic, and too much magic to the ritual. It didn’t stop when it had run her magic dry: it used her body as fuel. She burnt to ash in front of her brother.”

“Stars,” I whisper. I don’t think I’ll be able to forget that any time soon.

“I’ll say this for her,” Electra adds. “Her ritual-work was careful and thorough enough that once the ritual had exhausted her, there was not a speck of backlash from the vast amount of magic channelled through the array.”

I don’t have a sense of how impressive that is, but to judge by Edward’s sharp intake of breath he does and it’s very.

“So if you want to die the way she did, that’s your business,” Electra concludes, “but it’s my business to make sure you don’t do it until you’re good enough to not take anyone else with you. By whatever means necessary.”

If Edward was starting to relax a little, that threat snaps him back to full alertness. “Point taken,” he says sharply. “I won’t question the foundations of magic for another few years. But I have a question.”

“Ask it.”

“Who told you this story?”

“Your great-great-grandfather wanted to spare talented young magicians his sister’s fate,” Electra says instead of answering. “He wrote it down and gave it to several of the other greatest magicians of that era, and since then it has been passed down amongst those and told to anyone who has her realisation or a similar one.”

Edward pauses, considering. I ask the obvious question: “Then you…”

“In a manner of speaking.” Her tone does not invite further questions, and neither of us ask them. “Having thoroughly warned you against dispelling this particular illusion altogether, it is time to lift aside the veil just a little for the purposes of obtaining the full reading that was the reason I gave you the hints.”

“Oh. Yes. Right. I think I can manage that,” Edward says, and reaches out for the device once more. Despite his words, I expect him to struggle a little, but it barely takes a second’s hesitation before the colours emerge again. The pattern is more complex this time: the deep red and pale blue spiral around each other, blurring together into a dozen shades of purple where they meet. And the white flecks have grown into spots and splodges, small but blindingly bright.

I try to ingrain the pattern into my mind, memorise each detail so that I can pore over it and try to understand it later. It’s hard to hold the precise nature of the boundaries and the flow of the currents in my head for more than a second, though.

Edward removes his hand for the final time and slides the device across the table to Electra. She studies it for longer than before, maybe half a minute, before pressing her hand to it so that the pattern disappears.

“Well?” Edward asks.

“I would be very surprised if those measurements do not indicate the same thing as Tallulah’s anomaly.”

He doesn’t seem particularly surprised. “The white specks, I suppose?”

Electra’s expression is blank.

“Red and blue are the colours most usually associated with Siaril and Malaina respectively, whereas the white is not associated with any School, and I don’t know of anything usual that it could mean.”

“Go on,” says Electra.

“Oh, you’re going to make me say everything I’ve worked out so then you know exactly what not to tell me, are you?”

I wince. Electra laughs. “You are remarkably hard to manipulate,” she says.

But that’s an attempt at manipulation in itself, and it works: Edward’s lips twitch upwards and he relaxes a little. I make a note to point that out to him later.

“You can’t keep things from us,” Edward says. I expect him to make an argument that the secrets are ours because the anomaly is ours, but I should have known better. “You need our cooperation if you want to understand this problem, don’t you?”

“I don’t intend to keep secrets from you unnecessarily. It’s for your own good – “

Edward grimaces, but my reaction is stronger. What right does she have to decide what is and isn’t for my own good? It’s not like she’s –

My mother. That’s why I had that instinctive hatred of the idea: my mother has made so many decisions that she thought were for my own good but which turned out to be anything but. She doesn’t understand what’s best for me.

Electra, though? That’s a different question. I set aside the emotional reactions and ask “You mean… secrets along the lines of revelations like Lucrezia’s?”

“Similarly dangerous things. Theories that could be terribly dangerous, if I told you and they were wrong. Theories that could be terribly dangerous, if I told you and they were right.”

I can’t help shivering. I’ve stepped into a world of magic completely beyond my understanding, a world where there are dangers everywhere and my best hope of avoiding them is to close my eyes and do nothing. And I didn’t want –

It catches up with me in that moment. The Malaina episode that I’ve somehow been avoiding all day hits me in a rush, so that before I know it I can hear my heart beating too quickly in my ears. And I feel as if I’m watching Edward glare at Electra from somewhere far away – this is bad, part of me dimly realises. Very bad.

What am I supposed to do to stop this? Charles First-King. Edwin the Just. Simon the Drunkard. I vaguely feel Edward taking my hand: a little touch of warm, reassuring reality. Thomas the Defender. Eleanor the Bold. Timothy the Peacemaker.

It takes maybe a minute or two before I feel like I’m fully back in reality, during which time I get as far as the Second Civil War in my list of kings. “Thank you,” I say when I can. “And sorry.”

“Malaina?” Electra guesses. “Then don’t be. It’s common to have stronger and more frequent episodes while dealing with something like this. Edward, if you experience similar then please inform me.”

“I don’t think I will,” Edward says.

Not for the same reasons as me, at least. And while he’s been more on edge than normal throughout this meeting, I think that if he hasn’t come as close as I have by now then he’ll be all right.

“Tallulah?” he adds. “Thoughts on the measurements?”

He must have sensed that I was – am – feeling very out of place here, like I can’t contribute at all. “Wouldn’t it make sense to measure my signature as well?” I ask. “To have complete confirmation?”

“If that’s what you want,” says Electra, and pushes the device back across the table towards me.

I take it, place my hand on top, and close my eyes.