Nico’s eyes were shut tight, expecting the illusion to crash down around him. Expecting death.

“Do you feel that?” the masked man whispered in his ear, his hand settling on Nico’s own. “The rush of fear, the blood pounding in your ear? The sense that the ground is giving way beneath you. The subtle susurration in the air. This,” he said, with a point of finality, “is the effect of an Immaculate Illusion.”

Nico opened his eyes. The whole party seemed frozen in time. Dancers were locked in unnatural postures, legs and arms splayed out. The masked man snapped his fingers, and the party recommenced. The musical quartet continued where it had left off in its set.

“You have not failed this examination,” the masked man said. “Not yet. But you’ll have to do better than repeating Hofstadter verbatim. Regardless, when we reach the practical portion of this exam, that is when you will be truly tested. Let us continue with theory for now. How would you define an Hallucinatory Terrain? In your own words. Not Hofstadter’s.”

Nico lipped his lips. “An Hallucinatory Terrain is a fictitious territory. It can take any form. A grassy veldt, an underwater coral reef, or” he gestured around him, “even a masked ball.”

Even through his mask, Nico could tell the man was smiling.

“Very good. What you see here — this Masquerade — is the product of a meticulously crafted illusion. You knew that before I told you. How could you tell?”

“Because I’m in the Illusion Spire,” Nico replied. “It’s not a far logical leap.”

“Obviously. But if you were not in the Spire, how might you tell that this was an illusion?”

Nico looked around the room at the masked attendees, considering the question. An illusion, even a so-called Immaculate Illusion, was never flawless. There were always subtle defects, minor imperfections that could unveil its fraudulent nature to the skeptical eye. The violinist was now playing a soft, somber, contemplative tune. Many attendees were slow dancing with their partners. With their masks, their expressions were inscrutable. They were like automatons.

“The masks,” Nico said. “It is difficult to create a high fidelity illusion of a human. Humans are adept at reading the facial cues, at detecting oddities in others’ behavior. Human expressions and emotions are difficult to simulate. To conjure an illusion of dozens or hundreds of people acting independently yet in concert is many magnitudes of order more complex. You, or whoever crafted this illusion, made it a masked ball to minimize the cognitive overhead required to create and sustain it.”

“Very good. What else do you notice?”

Nico surveyed the room, eyes roaming from guest to guest. Don’t they seem lifeless? Or am I merely imagining it? He considered the ballroom, and again he could not help but be struck by the glass motif. Glass was everywhere. Did that have something to do with it? His eyes were drawn to the glass statue of the nude nymph near entrance of the room. It was surrounded by a circular well. An epiphany occurred to him.

“The glass statue is supposed to be a fountain,” he said slowly.

“Very good. Go on.”

“Every illusion at its very core is a lie, but the best illusions are planted in a bedrock of firm fact. They borrow liberally from the real world. This ballroom is a real place. It has an indoor fountain just like that one, but water physics are not easy to simulate. The author of the illusion swapped the fountain for a statue, but neglected to remove the well the fountain was based in.”

“Yes,” the masked man said. “Exactly. Indeed, you do seem to have a sound grasp of theory. Hofstadter would be proud.” He reached up and removed his own mask. He was, as Nico suspected, devilishly handsome, with icy blue eyes and stubbled cheeks, assuming that it was his real identity. “I should know,” he continued. “After all, I am Hofstadter.”

Nico blinked. “What? I thought… I thought Hofstadter lived and died centuries ago? He was a mage at Skyborn.”

“He is one my many identities, which I wear and discard at will.” He gave a bright smile. “Hofstadter is not my real name, but it is my preferred alias. I am a Visage of Il-ibn, the god of Illusion magic.”

Nico was dumbstruck by this revelation. Until recently he did not even know what a Visage was, and now he was learning that the author of his Illusion textbook was standing before him, essentially a minor deity? On balance however, he supposed that this development was not entirely improbable. It was odd how, during the course of his examination, he was being asked about Hofstadter’s definitions of things, as though Hofstadter himself were the absolute authority.

“Have I passed the theory component of the exam?”

“Yes. And now for the practical. First I would like you to create a gold coin.” He pointed at a spot on the table. “Right here.”

Money was always tricky. People looked closely at money. They bit coin to test if it was real or not. But Nico had done this before; the Minor Illusion cantrip could be applied to almost any medium.

He looked down at the table, visualizing the coin right between himself and Hofstadter.

He poured every fiber of his being into the illusion. The more details that were added to an illusion, the more real it became. He imagined the coin from its inception, shaped and stamped by a goldsmith in Empress Violetta’s mint. The goldmsith was a grizzled man with a diagonal black scar on his face. He reached down and inspected this particular coin, turning it over and over in his soot stained hands, rubbing dirt and grime into the coin’s small grooves, admiring his handiwork. He visualized the coin falling into the clutches of a wine merchant, who then passed it to a whorehouse madame, a fishmonger, a landlord, a seamstress.

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All this and more he conceived in seconds, the many strands of the coin’s history delicately woven together in his mind’s eye. He imagined the scent of the coin, flavored with dirt and skin oils. He imagined biting it, his teeth striking the hard metal.

Nico opened his eyes, and there it was. The coin he had imagined.

“Yes, excellent,” Hofstadter said. “Now invest it with solidity. Make it tangible and whole. Give it a body.”

This was something Nico seldom did. Something he had tried before but rarely practiced. To make an illusion solid required finding a suitable substrate to project an illusion upon, or (failing that) redirecting mass from one object to another. A substrate would need to be of roughly the same shape and size of the illusion, and there were no good candidates. Maybe a button? He suspected that would be considered cheating. So he tried the hard way.

He focused on the one of the empty glass snifters. It was better to choose an object that was nearby but inconspicuous. Closing his eyes, he imagined transferring the mass from the glass cup to the coin. He could feel sweat trickling down his temple, down his collarbone.

When he opened his eyes, Hofstadter was examining the coin, dancing it across his knuckles.

“Perfect. So, you know more than just theory. You are a gifted candidate, Niccolò. I have one final challenge for you. I would like you to dispel the illusion.”

Nico gave him a puzzled look. “The coin?”

Hofstadter laughed. “No, this illusion,” he waved his hands, gesturing to the palace ballroom, the masquerade. “Dispel all of this, and Il-ibn shall entreat with you personally.”

Nico glanced around him, considering the task. Although he knew the theory behind dispelling illusions, it was not something he had ever tried in practice. The essence was to strain the illusion’s boundaries, to heighten its complexity. With luck, it would collapse upon itself. Like undermining a castle wall, if you punctured a sharp hole in the illusion, the whole thing would fade with it.

He collected the brandy decanter on the table and grabbed several more that were resting on other tables. He strode briskly across the ballroom, purposely crashing into several passersby, who stumbled and fell. Reaching the fountain, he smashed the brandy decanters into the nude nymph’s breast. The brandy rained down into the well, and he used his hand to swirl the liquid, to force the computation of water physics.

“What the devil are you doing?” A portly man with a black mask and sleek black suit had grabbed him by the shoulder.

“A little art project,” Nico said. “What’s seven divided by zero?”

As he’d hoped, the man’s face screwed up in confusion as be began considering the impossible question. His mouth moved wordlessly, and then he collapsed onto his knees, hands pressing his temples as though he were having a migraine.

Other people also had also begun falling over as well, clutching their hearts and heads, moaning in pain. The fountain imploded. Tables toppled over. The sound of shattering glass was coming from every direction. Nico looked above and watched in a sort of dazed horror as the ceiling started to cave in. Reflexively he put his hands up, covering his head.

But nothing happened.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer at the Masquerade. He was now standing at the base of a neon blue pool. In the middle of it, on a small rocky island, stood a man. Or rather, a god: Il-ibn. His face was blurry — or perhaps Nico was just not worthy to gaze upon it. He had eight arms, and each hand had eight fingers.

“Brilliantly done, Niccolò.” He reached out, one of his many arms extending towards him. His hand graced Niccolò’s forehead, and he felt a warm tingling that spread through his skin and into his very mind.

“I bless you now with the Illusion attunement. You are forever a feather in my flock now, and I grace you with a sell to be used at your will. You have three choices.”

When Nico opened his eyes he saw three blue tomes floating in front of him. He walked up to the first one. The pool’s water lapped at his feet. The first spell was entitled Silent Image. He cracked its cover and read: Create an image of an object or creature. The illusion shall last for up to three hundred minutes, but the detail of the illusion is inversely proportionate to its duration.

The second was Disillusionment: Alter the mental state of your designated target, inflicting disillusionment, depression, or some other mental malady. With sufficient concentration, the effects can last indefinitely, but will be broken if the target suspects your duplicity.

The third was Disguise: Alter your physical appearance or behavior to match a selected target. At higher levels one can use this spell to even include clothing, or to simulate both physical appearance and behavior simultaneously.

Years ago, when Nico was an actor he’d taken an interest in disguises. It had led him to explore adjacent disciplines, like alchemy and cosmetics and tailoring. But even blessed with an abundance of materials, disguises were hard work. To be able to procure a disguise, using only my will and my mind… The possibility was too tantalizing to pass up. He selected the last volume, Disguise.

“You will find the spell handy in the challenges you face in the near future,” Il-ibn said. “Read the spellbook. Study it carefully and hone your skills to cement your knowledge. At a later date you may return to my Spire and continue your progression.”

“Yes, I will—” But Il-ibn did not wait for his reply. The god and the pool had already vanished. Nico found himself in an abyssal chasm, completely alone. Stone steps were cut into one of the three walls.

He climbed up them and out of the Spire.

***

With Z as their guide, they trekked back to Fjordur the next day, and by that evening they had returned to Skyborn. They found Cosimo in Cloud Nine, seated at the same table they’d occupied a couple nights prior.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he said.

“A little, uhh… extracurricular activity,” Leo said. “Why? What’s new?”

“Golgas was able to decrypt the message sooner than anticipated. I just received this.”

He held out a note. Leo took it, and they each read it silently.

Only Duke Ferdinand knows where they key is kept. You may ask him, but his lips are made of stone.

“Huh?” said Leo. “Is it another code? Or did we intercept some kind of communique?”

Cosimo was pensive, saying nothing.

“I have a feeling,” said Nico, his mind flashing back to the symbol of the Black Cabal in the library, “that this quest we’re on — this scavenger hunt — has nothing to do with Ilhen’s Seventh. I think we’ve been ensnared in something far more sinister. Something political.”

Finally, Cosimo looked up at them, smiling. “Well, I suppose you and Tomasso can arrange an audience with Duke Ferdinand II?”

It wasn’t necessary, of course. Tomasso would be meeting with the Duke on the morrow.

He had been summoned.