Once my summary was finished, and the color had returned to Wilhena's cheeks, I glanced over at Jenlict. His face was schooled in a neutral expression, giving nothing away of the thoughts that might be going through his head. Wilhena's eyes were glued to my hand, as she reached out and touched the minor pink line left behind where the cut had just been.

"Amazing. Simply amazing. Jenlict, someone did it. Someone proved my father's theory correct, even if they didn't find documented evidence, they found real proof!"

"Indeed, madam."

I jumped on that bit of news. "Your father had a theory about this?"

"Not about this, but that magic was more useful than we knew, and there was something wrong with how we were teaching it or how we were using it. Nothing he could prove about it, nothing in the books he gathered about it contradicted what we've been doing, but he always felt like there should be something more to it than just keeping your temper and controlling your emotions to stop the accidental releases of power. That there was a different path that we'd lost, and the path we were on was weakening our abilities. He posited that we'd lost some key magic knowledge in our histories, something related to magic, which is why he started collecting his own reference materials. But no matter what he found, there were never more than brief, tantalizing references to other works that he could not locate. Glimpses that there was perhaps some form of common knowledge that either was so common that nobody documented it, or he just couldn't find any copies. Shortly before he died, he even endowed a bounty and made it known to several bookshops what he'd pay for these materials. Now, more than three decadiums have passed without any of that bounty being claimed. I never expected we'd find anything, but it's part of why I'm collecting old illuminated manuscripts. Every book in my father's collection focused on variants of the known magics or ways to strengthen them. Several covered methods for generating constant heat instead of a big flame burst, or using the electro energy to make certain materials attracted to each other by induced magnetism. Others are about meditation as emotional stabilization and energy recovery, and there's even a fairly short one about methods for avoiding disruption while performing magic. But nothing has ever touched on healing or whatever the floating knife trick is..."

"I call it telekinesis or remote motion. You could call it 'floating hand' or 'remote hand', or 'magic grip', I suppose. The name doesn't matter so much as the idea and focusing on the image of the remote motion. It gets much harder the farther away from you that you use it. I don't have exact figures, but I'd approximate it as an exponential rate of cost increases. It's pretty low when you use it within a pace, but that is more than doubled at two paces but it is more than double again when used at four."

I may have gone a bit too far into information overshare mode because of nervous excitement coupled with a bit of residual terror, so I reined in my enthusiastic mouth and shut up.

"Right, so, the magic hand trick and the quickened healing. Extraordinary. Two entirely new magics. One is still mostly, but that healing thing…. How much can you heal? Can you heal others? Does it work on old injuries? Sorry, I should probably let you answer instead of pestering you with questions."

"Right now, Wilhena, we just don't know. I've only had cuts and minor injuries like a sunburn. I haven't had any success with other people. It seems like it should work, but something is blocking the energy transfer, so it feels like the energy just builds up inside me but then won't go anywhere. We've only tried a few times with minor injuries, because until a few days ago, I was the only one who could accelerate my healing. As to the last question, I don't really have any old injuries to check. In a few tendays, I could probably see if we can answer that question, but it'd mean training up someone else, expanding the circle of people who know what's going on, and increasing the risk of uncontrolled release of information. Also I'm far better at demonstrating than teaching, so it could even take months or seasons, if they don't believe in me like my parents did."

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There was a brief silence in the room, then Henrig spoke up, "Grint, we wouldn't have to expand at all. I have a few scars from childhood accidents, or climbing the store shelves, and my shoulder has a hitch in it when I work the high shelves, so I could be the next training candidate. It may take a bit of time for me to get up to speed, since I haven't done anything much with magic in longer than you've been alive. Not much call for it as a shopkeep, I'm afraid."

"I think the mage hand technique is great for practice, you can literally just move really small rocks to get back into practice. It's less flashy, too, and no accidental book burnings, unlike other experiments." I grinned at Wilhena, who warmly smiled back at this reference to her father's flame-filled follies. Maybe I am getting better at this people stuff.

"So, that experiment is fine, but the question at hand here and now is this: What are the options we have, and what should we do?" my dad returns our focus to the present.

"Let me make some discrete inquiries to the Omniology and request the recently published reports from their research. I'm confident that you could mirror the approach they use, and hide the critical discoveries in abstruse esoteric language until they have been widely shared. The mage hand technique would be an excellent place where you could start, because you've indicated that it's fairly limited and non-threatening to the status or power of the anti-magic factions. It's a parlor trick. After that's published, something on the impact of meditation on healing rates might be in order, hiding the results in dense mathematical analysis shouldn't be a difficult issue for Grint. With those goals in mind, I think the safest and best path for you and for our small country would be to have Grint return to the City and rejoin the Magic Research Department. I would effectively be his sponsor into the Omniology as a magical research fellow in the spring. I think my father's endowment would be better spent creating the new texts than looking for the old ones at this point."

"That… that sounds amazing. But I don't have the credentials for such a post, are you sure they'll even consider it? It's quite a step from assistant analysis and mathematics flunky and part time janitor to research fellow."

"Of course they will, dearie, they need the thalers if they cut you out to save some small amount of coin. The endowment has been growing untouched for 30 years, so I'm more than capable of making them an offer they will not be willing to refuse. For now, work with Henrig and Jenlict, and I'll work on getting your appointment to the Omniology confirmed for the start of next season. Endowments always come with strings. It's part of how the game is played."

"I think we'll have to take your word for that, Wilhena, since we came to you for advice, we'd be foolish not to take it. That you're willing to put money behind and help protect my son, that is far more than I dared to hope."

"Katerin, you've been a great help finding rare books for several decadiums, and your son has been quite helpful at the store. It's a shame that he's clearly destined for something else, because Henrig was really enjoying having the competent help."

Clearly my future was out of my hands for the time being, but at least they both seemed to have my best interest in mind, even if I wasn't sure why the Halgershiens were taking it this far. I surely wasn't going to turn down this level of help and protection.

"Well, Henrig, I'll stick with the store as long as I can, or until you find some new help. I suspect there are a few mid-year graduates from Pleichston Secondary that might be seeking a job, so I can stop in and visit the after school Magic Club and see if any of my old associates are due to graduate early, they generally were good with math and since magic isn't all the rage these days, assistant shopkeeper might be something worth considering."