In a matter of moments, Oz reached the side of the lake. He paused and turned back, taking in the distance between him and the closed door to the library. Damn. That’s a long ways, and I crossed it in instants. With that movement technique, I’m easily faster than the fastest sprinter back in my world.

Damn. Mages are awesome! Even someone at my low level can already move that quickly. If nothing else, it’s incredibly convenient.

He settled down under a tree and flipped open the first book, settling in to read. One book after another, setting them to the side when he finished. He left the dark magic book alone, intending to read it after he finished the fey spell. It sat quietly in its cloth, the blood it leaked vanishing almost as soon as it dripped out.

Finishing the last book, Oz stacked it with the rest and sat forward, pressing his fingertips together as he thought. A few passages of the books came to mind.

Glamours are easy to cast, but difficult to perfect. A true master of glamour can spin an illusion so complete as to become miniature worlds in of themselves. The most powerful Glamours are indistinguishable from Underhills, and have earned the name ‘illusory world’ from unimaginative human mages. Although ‘illusory world’ is a way to describe the most powerful glamours, do not take it as their only description…

Oz shook his head. And then the passage went on and on in flowery nonsense about master glamours for a while, which isn’t helpful for a beginner like me. Oz moved to the next passage.

A glamour is a delicate working, though the spell itself is incredibly robust. Work the illusion somewhere it absolutely will not be disturbed, but once it is cast, it is near impossible to break, so long as the working is not interrupted.

For beginners, a simple glamour is as follows:

Face oneself, without seeing oneself. Project the unseen onto the seen, and become unseen.

In this way, become invisible.

Oz pressed his lips together at the memory of the passage. It’s nice that they gave me instructions. Unfortunately, they were absolutely useless. What does any of that mean? It’s nice to have a fancy puzzle, but finish it with an explanation of what it means! I’m not trying to ponder Buddhist koans, I’m trying to execute magic, okay?

He glanced at the final passage, then sighed. And it doesn’t get better.

…nay, you must, no, musn’t, for to see oneself is antipose to the spell’s intent. Though the first glamour it may be, it is more difficult than one may at first think. Sight turned aside, allows one to hide, but the difference is darkly. Mind that one’s eyes are not completely been hide, and the experience shall improve markedly.

Oz rubbed his forehead. The shitty slant rhymes, the poor meter, and let’s not even talk about how it’s rhyming in the first place. It’s just annoying. So incredibly annoying. And it mostly seems to warn not to turn your eyes invisible as part of the invisibility glamour, which, yeah, I got it.

He sighed, turning back to the first passage. Face yourself, without seeing yourself. Face myself…the easiest way to do that, is in a mirror. But without seeing myself…what does that mean? A broken mirror? One that doesn’t reflect? But then I can’t face myself, since I never faced myself.

Oh, wait! There’s that trick. The one where you can take a picture of a mirror without taking a picture of the camera. It’s basically just angles, but it does mean you can ‘face yourself,’ that is, point a mirror at yourself, without ‘seeing yourself,’ which I’m interpreting to mean reflect in the mirror.

Seems cheap, but maybe it’ll pass inspection? This spell is meant to be a basic glamour, after all. It isn’t an advanced spell, by any means.

Oz pursed his lips. “Now, to find a mirror.”

The grass rustled behind him. Oz turned.

Linnea stood over him, her arms crossed, in human form. She cocked an eyebrow. “How goes it?”

“Ah…” Oz lowered his head. “I have bad news.”

“What?” Linnea asked, tilting her head.

“Roan is dead.”

Linnea frowned, then sighed. “Yeah. That figures.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“That’s all?” Oz asked, a little lost. I mean, I didn’t feel much for the guy, but he was kind of a dick to me. Linnea and he were involved.

She shrugged. “Lif is the one who forced me to seduce him. I always thought he was a little annoying. Brash and dim. I don’t know. I expected him to die eventually. Mages like him don’t last long.”

“Ah,” Oz muttered. Right…Lif. Lif Lifsson, her old master, who forced her to seduce people to advance his position in the Mages’ Quarter. She didn’t actually love Roan, and she actually might have resented him for what her Master was forcing her to do…or if not resented him outright, at least seen him in a negative light, thanks to her situation. Her not crying makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it.

“But then, neither do people like you,” Linnea murmured, looking at Oz.

Oz glanced at her. Almost laughing, he asked, “Then, you won’t shed a tear when I die, either?”

“No. I shouldn’t. Not for a doomed fool like you.” She reached down and scuffed his hair, rolling her eyes.

“But will you?” Oz pressed, teasing a little.

“Not if you don’t let me out of this plains,” she returned.

Oz flinched. “That…I’m sorry, Linnea.”

“You can’t trust me. I understand. Master never trusted me, either.”

Putting his hands over his face, Oz took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Right, but you did.”

“I did, I did.” Oz sighed. “It’s just—” Should I say it?

“Go on.”

He pressed his lips together, then sighed. All at once. Just admit it. “I’m worried—I’m worried that Lif would pressure you into letting him into the library. That’s why I don’t want you to have access to the door.”

Linnea frowned at him. “You thought I’d be that stupid?”

“Not stupid, no. Not at all. Instead, it’s that Lif is an abuser. An expert manipulator. And he’s manipulated you for a long time. He knows what makes you tick, how to pressure you, how to incite you into certain actions. It’s not that you’re stupid. It’s that Lif has too much of a hold over you, whether you realize it or not. Even feeling angry at Lif could allow him to play you.”

“Could it?” Linnea asked dryly.

“Does he not know how to manipulate you?” Oz asked.

She twisted her lips, annoyed, but didn’t contradict him.

“Right. You know he knows, I know, we all know. It’s not your fault, and it’s no failing of yours. It’s that he’s a filthy piece of shit who’s very happy to use any dirty tactic to abuse you into getting what he wants. In my mind, rather than put you in that situation where Lif is trying to pressure you, and maybe cause you undue mental harm and duress, it was better to remove you from that situation entirely. So not only do we not give Lif an option to attack you, but also we prevent you from having to live through that situation.”

“What if I just…don’t answer the door? As impossible as that is for you to imagine,” Linnea said mockingly.

Oz grimaced. “I know, I know. Are there no voice techniques, though? No mental attacks? I know the library has a powerful barrier, but I don’t know if he’s already put a spell on you, or already compelled you with a pact or something. Since there’s so much I don’t know, I thought it was better to do what I could to protect you, and the library, and keep you safe here, behind the World Door.”

Linnea harrumphed, thumping down to sit beside him. She punched his arm, but the blow had no force in it. “Figures. It’s your stupid way of looking after me, isn’t it.”

“Yeah…I’m sorry. I should have told you from the start. I was just so worried…I didn’t know what the timelines were, how long we had to find the scandal, I…”

She sat forward, propping her hand on her chin, the gesture putting her face almost too close to Oz’s. “Does that mean you’ve found your scandal, if you’re wasting time here to talk to me?”

“Almost. No…yes, we’ve found it. But we haven’t found out who’s behind it,” Oz said.

“The most essential part.”

“Indeed. We’re close, but not there yet.” He leaned back, a little uncomfortable with her face so close. It’s hard to focus, when she’s right there. Is she doing that on purpose? Seducing me. Or is that an old habit?

“So what are you doing here?”

“Working on a glamour. A very simple one, if you’d believe it. I just need a mirror,” Oz told her, looking over at her.

Linnea wrinkled her nose. “Glamour.”

“What?” Oz asked.

“Fey are always so stuck up about their damn glamours. As if they’re that nice. They’re just glorified illusions,” Linnea groused.

“Really?”

Linnea nodded. “Don’t believe the fey hype about glamours. They’re a little harder than mage illusions to crack, especially if the person on the other end isn’t looking for it, but they’re just as easy to crack if you’re looking for a glamour. Don’t bother using simple glamours on fey. They’ll laugh in your face.”

“What about human mages?”

She paused at that. “I guess…human mages…it’s not as if it’ll block a much higher level mage from seeing through it, but if they aren’t actively looking for you, they might overlook you.”

“What if I cast it from here, and project it out there?” Oz asked, gesturing toward himself, then out at the wider world.

Linnea paused. Abruptly, she snorted. “That… it’s an incredible idea. The barrier will block your identity from the other mage. They might be able to see the glamour, but they’d have to penetrate the barrier to see through it, since you have to disrupt the casting to reveal what’s within the glamour. Usually that’s as easy as deflecting the glamour back at the caster, but since the barrier will protect you from that, you should be able to withstand a few casual attempts to break the glamour.”

“Really?” Oz asked. A moment later, he frowned. It’s good, but it’s not invincible. After all, it’s still using the library’s barrier, which only has so much durability. Sure, it’ll hold on for a long time, but it won’t hold on forever, and using its durability up on something so silly is not a great idea. I will use this, but I won’t just flaunt the glamour. The best-case scenario is still to avoid the higher-level mage’s attention entirely.

“I just need a mirror,” he muttered to himself, lost in thought again.

Linnea thrust her hand out, offering him a compact mirror. “Will this do?”

Oz took it, grinning at her. “I think it will! Thanks, Linnea!”

“You’re welcome,” she said, eyes lingering on him.

Flipping the mirror open, Oz inspected it. He smiled at himself. Time to cast some magic!