The Shades returned.

It happened two days after Aris left - it was one of the reasons how Camaz knew for sure that his ex-student left the island. The assumption was that they had become phobic of Aris after she murdered one of their own and absorbed the Shade into her Solute. While they had protested her actions by going to Camaz, they did not seem to blame him for their losses.

It was a fascinating study on Shade social structures but it brought them no closer to figuring out exactly what a Shade was. Perhaps they didn’t draw the connection between Aris and Camaz owing to the fact that they don’t understand what ‘student’ and ‘teacher’ is. Perhaps they don’t die in the way people view death and they didn’t understand Aris’s actions. Perhaps they understood everything and they simply don’t care.

Camaz put real effort into studying Sharp when the Shade reappeared. He started on a paper and started thinking about funding on research - all that academic bullshit he had been expected to do. But on most days he found himself by the willow trees that overlooked the Aortic Strait and stared out to the Heart over the waters.

Aris liked climbing the trees. Camaz never told her but he liked seeing her climb - not many people did that around the Academy. Very rarely did children come visit, but all of them were expected to be on the best behavior around the Professors. Tree-climbing was for the young and carefree; people at the Academy were usually neither. Camaz climbed trees when he was a boy as well, once upon a time. He wished he could have told her that they would have been good friends if they shared a childhood. They would have climbed the willows together.

Instead Aris was kept on this island full of boring adults and overbearing professors for reasons she accepted with her usual grim-faced maturity. Would she have not murdered and desecrated a Shade if he had let her go to the Heart in the first place?

The question hung with him and drew him to the trees where he knew Aris liked to sit and watch the boats. She chose that spot because she could look towards the Heart. He was so convinced that she would find nothing there that would help, that it was just that adolescent anger that drove her toward that place. Ironically he understood why she wanted to go now that she was gone. He stared at the Heart at the distance, that opulent yet dirty city where nobles and the Gaian Emperor lived. She was simply wondering if she could just do a little more to quiet some unnamed demon that had infested her life.

Camaz tore himself away from the view, the unchanging view of the Heart and walked alone back to his lighthouse. Shades bubbled up from the dark crevices of the stone building as he walked past them. The ones he was more familiar with appeared clearer and they silently shifted in shape when he approached.

Fixing himself some tea, he casually prompted one to start talking. It was almost always inane chatter from students or staff. One shade had developed a fascination with the Head Librarian and liked to memorize her monotone voice listing out numbers. Camaz rolled his eyes at the sound of a ringing bell and quickly prompted another to relay what it overheard.

Sharp had followed Yepla as usual. The buff manus professor had spent weeks adjusting his intricate theory over how Aris was Camaz’s love child with a cheating wife of one of the island’s merchants. However with the up-tick of Gate activity, even the gossipy Yepla has kept his interactions with people on actual work.

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“… have to share resources. There are two more sightings near Nossan mountains. Such a damn awkward distance, too close but too far…”

Of course Camaz already knew about these Gate sightings since he was the one that relayed the information to Yepla in the first place. Their geographers were busy mapping out every sighting or suspected sighting. While seemingly random, the wave of incidents seem to be moving Westward, towards the Heart. The teacup made a clinking sound against its dish as Camaz set it down to pour hot water in, the tea leaves swirling with the motion of the water. The water immediately stained amber in color in the steaming cup.

Another Shade sounded out. “…crazy. There’s already rumors that the Emperor is getting pressure to send more people out to deal with the Unseeing. Only a matter of time before our manus students are treated as soldiers…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted one of the Shades circling in a slow drift over a book on the large round table at the center column of the lighthouse. It wobbled briefly, undulating in a steady rhythm, then went back to slowly drifting in a circle. Shades were occasionally fascinated with the seemingly mundane things, but Camaz had grown to learn if one paid attention, the fascination usually meant something. They were attracted to changes in the Solvent, be it from strong emotion or from activated runes.

Camaz set his tea down beside it and picked up the book, the motion shooing away the Shade and it disappeared like dissipating smoke. At first glance, the book was the most boring drivel on the library’s filing procedures. Before the Head Librarian became the sole source of organizing the unfathomable amount of books, there was a campaign to make everything more comprehensive and some poor students had to mock up a system for categorizing everything. Copies of this book were made to try to force everyone to keep the Library sane and organized but of course that never worked. Copies of the book remain in the Academy as a souvenir of the past and perhaps a safeguard in case anything happens to the Head Librarian. Camaz kept a copy solely for the purpose of deceit.

Why would anyone read a book on the library’s obsolete filing system? He made sure the cover was boring as well - an inconspicuous brown with cheap leather, no adornments and plain titling. It was uncomfortable to flip through as well - the binding was too tight and didn’t allow for it to stay open by itself. He thumbed through to page 76.

Instead of what pages 76 and 77 were initially, there were two blank pages devoid of the book’s original text. When Camaz pressed his thumb at the corner of the page, runes briefly lit up across the empty page before disappearing again. He had to tempt the Solvent through it for the runes to grow darker, like ink seeping into the paper. Lines and characters slithered across the page except for a perfectly circular shape in the middle of page 77 that was kept blank.

After a few moments a single, bold rune appeared in the middle of the blank circle: the ‘mo’ rune. This rune wasn’t associated with the rest on the page - it was a rune conveyed to him through this communication enchantment by his contact over at the Heart. The mo rune meant Moulu wanted to meet with him.

It also meant he had to go over to the Heart to do so. He had hoped to avoid it. Camaz drank his tea, the heat stinging his tongue. The Emperor’s capital reminded him too much of all the things he’s done wrong with raising Aris. It spoke too much of what could have been, how he should have been a better guardian to the wayward princess. Just the view of it across the strait reminded him he failed as a parent.

Camaz snapped the book shut and began collecting his stuff for the short journey across the Aortic strait.