The following evening, with another exam out of the way, Juniper was back at the library. Finding the book listed in the note wasn’t difficult at all–with the coordinates in hand, all she had to do was walk up to the stated location, and it was right there.
Which was why Juniper was now massaging her temples, with a copy of On the Mating Rituals of the Common Yellow-Feathered Wind Serpent, Second Edition in front of her.
At least it wasn’t too thick a book–she’d given it a cursory read, even though her eyes were glazing over by the end. But this didn’t change the fact that there was absolutely nothing of use to be found inside.
Unless Juniper wanted to start a wind serpent farm, which she didn’t. And some of the things she’d seen in the book she dearly wished she could forget.
The one thing of note was that the book was almost ancient. Juniper hadn’t noticed at first, given its very good condition, but the volume had apparently been published nearly a thousand years ago.
At first, she thought the book had to be hiding something. She’d done a quick divination on it, and the book did have a weak magical signature about it, but at a closer look, it seemed to be tied to its preservation spell. A good percentage of the books held in the library had such an enchantment on them.
Still, the note had probably pointed her to this book for a reason, and given the mysterious watcher was her only lead as to how she’d been sent back in time, Juniper saw no choice but to play along.
The librarian gave her an odd look when she went to check the book out, and Juniper could only shrug weakly.
***
On Friday, Juniper found the third note on schedule. She’d checked her locker every day so far, but unlike the second note, it didn’t appear early.
Or maybe the pillow note wasn’t early, and I just found it late last time, Juniper thought.
Like the first one, it had pointed her to another book, this one even more confusing than the last: The Fundamentals of Music Theory. Juniper had tried reading it from the back to the front, and then upside down, to no avail. Comparing the pages with the first book showed no obvious pattern.
This one didn’t have a publication date on it, so the only thing Juniper could say for sure it had in common with the first was the preservation spell–but then again, so did half the library.
Juniper was beginning to think she’d been sent on a wild goose chase. That, perhaps, someone in a higher dimension was having fun leading a poor schmuck by the nose.
Still, when the end of the week came, and Juniper’s classmates left on the second year field trip, Juniper remained behind, no matter how much she was tempted to join in. She was squandering the opportunity to tail Leon and find… whatever it was he’d found, but she wanted to see the whole note business to its conclusion. It’s gonna start making sense at some point. It has to.
So when she retrieved the fourth note from her bathroom cabinet on Monday morning, she was prepared for it. She marched to the library, found the right stack, climbed the ladder to the tenth shelf where the note had pointed her to, and retrieved the book.
On the Four Humors and Their Imbalances.
Juniper jumped down from the ladder and grimaced. At least the age of the book was obvious at a glance–the humors had been disproven centuries ago. She didn’t like the direction the books were taking.
As she stood there glaring at the book in distaste, she didn’t notice the young man approaching behind her.
“Juniper?” Varis asked. “Hey, there.”
Juniper jumped as if electrocuted, then turned and glared at Varis. He put his hands up appeasingly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
Inwardly, Juniper was screaming. How did you forget Varis would be in the medical section today?
She’d avoided him the first time, and now, with forewarning, she managed to run into him.
I can’t even blame my luck, she moaned.
“Hi, Varis,” she said, schooling her face. He already clearly didn’t like her, and the last thing she needed was to make an enemy of the ducal heir. “Sorry, I was lost in thought.”
Varis let out a small laugh. “Yeah, I noticed.” He looked a bit lost for a moment. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”
Juniper shrugged. “I was just doing some research,” she said, gesturing with the book. She made sure to turn it so that the title wasn’t visible. “I could say the same about you, though.”
She was genuinely curious why Varis might be looking into healing, so it didn’t hurt to fish around under the guise of polite conversation. Varis, though, misunderstood her question. “I needed a break from the others.” His eyes twinkled. “We’ve known each other for ages, but sometimes you just want to be alone for a bit, you know?”
Well, that wasn’t what she’d asked, but it was interesting nonetheless. Varis was known to be outgoing, and Juniper hadn’t realized it wore on him.
“What about you? I thought you’d be jumping at the chance to get rare resources,” he said, and Juniper barely held herself back from lashing at him. How he so casually poked at her lack of means…
But she didn’t see any hint of malice on his face. Was he sincere? Or–he’d probably been trained from birth on how to best manipulate people. Could she trust that he wasn’t toying with her?
“It seemed like a gamble,” she finally said after weighing her choices. “And I haven’t chosen a Path yet, so I’d rather spend more time on this.” She couldn’t tell him she’d decided to stay so she could go on an esoteric scavenger hunt, so she told him the reason she’d remained the first time around.
Varis nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good idea,” he said. This didn’t seem mocking–had she said the right thing? “I’m lucky that I’ve already picked mine.”
Juniper decided to fish around some more. “Healing?” she asked, looking at the shelves around them.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s the most useful of all disciplines, for society as a whole.” He looked wistful. “And the most beautiful.”
Juniper was taken aback. She really didn’t think he was the type. “Huh. I thought you’d prefer something more…” she cut herself before she could finish.
Something dark flashed through his eyes. “More like my mother?”
Juniper inclined her head, somewhat sheepishly. While his father, the Duke, was a mundane, his mother was a powerful Dynamics practitioner–one of the most destructive alive.
“Well, she certainly doesn’t approve,” he muttered.
Juniper winced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring it up.”
“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m used to it.”
“Well, I should better go,” Juniper said, figuring she should extricate herself because she could cause any more damage. “Good luck with your studies.”
“You too,” he said, giving her a warm smile.
Juniper clutched the book and rushed away from the young noble.
What in the abyss was that? she asked herself as she walked to the library’s front desk.
Varis had been… downright nice. Certainly not as mean as she’d expected.
Sure, they’d never really talked once in the whole two years they’d known each other, but this didn’t seem like a man that actively disliked her.
…Had she been wrong all along?
Or maybe it was a ploy to make her let her guard down. So he could do something evil to her later.
…But their meeting had been entirely a coincidence–he hadn’t interacted with her at all the last time around.
She dumped the book at the front desk along with her library card while her mind whirled. Had she been overthinking things? Was he not snubbing her, after all?
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She had been avoiding him…
“This is the last book you can check out, by the way,” the librarian said, breaking Juniper’s reverie. “You’ll need to return one first before you can borrow another.”
“Will do,” Juniper replied.
As soon as she figured out what the books’ deal was.
***
Juniper sat on the floor in the middle of her room with the three books open before her.
Three was a good number. A magic number. All the important things happened in threes–or at least, people thought they did. The point was, humans liked the number three. Be it mysticism, or coincidence, or plain old pattern recognition, whenever threes were involved, humans knew something important was about to happen.
The three books seemed to think otherwise.
They were obviously related, at the very least. The library had tons of books, but barely a fraction were truly old. The book on music didn’t have a date on it, but the language gave it away–the three books were contemporaries.
She’d tried reading one word from each, alternatively, but the result was garbage. She’d tried referencing any numbers that appeared with certain words, but that was a bust too. She’d tried any cipher that she knew, and one that she wasn’t supposed to know, but they all returned nonsense.
She stacked the books on top of each other, about to call it quits, when the transformation began.
Juniper started as the books began to glow, hovering a few centimeters above the ground. Then, when each was as bright as a halogen bulb, they melted into each other. The resulting mass solidified, forming into a blue leather-bound book, about as thick as Juniper’s wrist.
Juniper stared at it mutely. It continued to hover, undeterred by gravity, until Juniper finally placed her hand on its cover.
It felt warm to the touch, and as she took hold of the book, she felt the magic disperse, and gravity reasserting itself. There was no text on the cover beyond the embossed depiction of a wind serpent.
She opened the book, her eyes falling to the hand-written text on the inner cover.
Clavien Skystrall
The Force of Will. Thoughts. Insights. Techniques.
A Legacy - Volume One
Juniper sucked in a breath. This… this was big. Monumentally big. Maybe bigger than Leon’s discovery, though she couldn’t know for sure.
While knowledge on disciplines was freely circulated, anything involving training the Soul and Will were jealously guarded secrets. Most powerful practitioners would only pass them on to their loved ones, or to a trusted disciple–and disciples had largely disappeared with the advent of the academies.
The more reclusive of practitioners would create trials and dungeons, so that their legacies would continue in the hands of someone they found worthy.
Some just didn’t bother. Skystrall’s legacy had famously never been found, and many speculated that he’d simply never left one.
Juniper swallowed nervously. Clearly, they were wrong.
And what a strange way to hide a legacy! Three unrelated books, revealing the legacy when brought together. How had her watcher known?
She leafed through the book, a headache forming almost instantly. She closed the book, squeezing her eyes shut. Even then, her vision swam with shapes and colors–but the headache began to abate.
Magical writing, Juniper realized. She’d seen it before–the plaque beneath Skystrall’s statue in the academy courtyard held his signature, carved in stone. The signature was wrought with meaning, and staring at it too long could bring about a headache.
This book was some six hundred pages of the same.
Juniper breathed out the tension, and opened the book to the first page. The headache returned with a vengeance, but with a single page visible, it was much more manageable.
A bead of sweat rolled down Juniper’s brow as she read the first line.
This was going to take a while.
***
Juniper spent the rest of the break locked inside of her own room, leaving only twice a day to eat. She’d checked one more note, out of curiosity, but the new ones had reverted to dots.
During this time, she discovered a few things about the book.
The text itself wasn’t actually important–so far, all Juniper had found were a few poems, a short story, and some tidbits from Skystrall’s life. Juniper would have gone as far as to say she wasn’t particularly impressed from that point of view. However powerful he had been, Skystrall was no poet.
But the words were imprinted with raw power–a fragment of Skystrall’s Will. Reading them took all of Juniper’s concentrated Will–but once she did, she could see, hear, and feel the images Skystrall had imparted.
Which, she realized, was the entire point. Skystrall had shaped his remnant Will with the words he’d left, creating a kind of obstacle course that she had to traverse with nothing but her Will. A whetstone upon which to sharpen it.
In a single week, she’d already tangibly improved her Will. She was still limited by her lack of a Path, but every simple spell she could do was slightly more powerful.
An absolutely priceless treasure, Juniper knew. She hadn’t dared tell anyone–an item like this would almost surely be taken from her. She would need to be very careful to hide it once Evie came back.
Juniper didn’t think she’d be able to hold on to the book forever. At some point, she’d slip up, or some diviner would realize there was a treasure nearby and go investigate–it was only a matter of time. She needed to get as much use out of it for as long as she could.
With bloodshot eyes, Juniper opened the book and read.
***
On the last day of the break, instead of going straight to her room after breakfast, Juniper stopped by the front desk.
“Good day,” she greeted as the assistant on duty looked up at her. “Is there any mail for me, by any chance?”
She’d avoided the place, the past few days. Afraid of what she’d find–afraid that she’d find something.
“Miss Lorn, right?” the assistant asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. “Yeah, a letter arrived a few days ago. Here you go.”
Juniper took the offered letter, her hands leaden. The matron had sent it–and yet, Juniper hoped this time, the letter would say something else.
Reading the letter was like a stab through the heart. Her tongue tasted like ash.
Juniper was invited to attend Adar and Hester’s memorial on the 11th of Sunfire.
She went to her room, sat down next to her bed, and wept.
***
The first thing Evie said to Juniper when she returned from the field trip was, “I believe you.”
Given that this had come with absolutely no context and Juniper had just fallen asleep, the only reply her addled mind could formulate was, “What?”
Evie grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were sleeping. We can talk tomorrow.”
“No, no,” Juniper said as she climbed out of bed. A flash of worry shot through her–she didn’t remember if she’d hidden the book before she’d gone to bed. “What did you say?”
“I said I believe you.” Evie’s eyes were resolute.
“About the…”
“About the time travel thing, yeah.” Evie took a deep breath. “All the things you said would happen–well, they happened.”
Juniper’s breath stuck in her throat. “Did you follow Leon?”
“No, though I wish I did,” Evie said, shaking her head. “I still thought you were crazy at that point. But then, I caught the trail of that masked ash snake and I grew suspicious. They’re too rare for what you said to have been a random stab.” She paused for a moment. “Anyway, when I found the nest, I remembered the thing you said. So, instead of going after Faro, I hid behind the tree.”
“So someone was following you,” Juniper guessed.
“It was Drae,” she said, scowling. “And she had some of her friends with her, so I couldn’t confront them.”
Juniper gave her a sympathetic smile. “That sucks.”
“It really does. But,” Evie stopped to take a deep breath, “not as much as it must have sucked for you when I called you crazy.”
“Eh, I don’t know,” Juniper said, trying to sound jovial. “Losing a masked ash snake is kind of up there.”
“Juniper!” Evie whined. “I’m trying to apologize here.”
“I accept your apology. But, you know, I don’t really blame you. The whole idea is pretty crazy.”
“It is,” Evie agreed. “And I’m still not fully convinced. It could still be something like, I don’t know, a prophetic dream–”
Juniper snorted, then pain bloomed in her heart again. “Prophetic dreams aren’t real.”
“And time travel is?” Evie shook her head. “Something’s got to be real, and prophetic dreams are easier to stomach.”
“The distinction is moot, anyway,” Juniper ventured.
“What I’m worried about, though,” Evie said, “is how you said it ended. You said the universe broke?”
Juniper winced, the buried memory surfacing again. She’d done her best not to think about it–she could almost imagine time was just repeating for no reason at all. “Yeah. The stars stretched into lines and then the sky shattered.”
“Have you tried warning anyone?”
“Other than you?” Juniper asked. “No. I figured it was a bad idea, given your reaction.”
Evie’s face is severe. “June. We have to tell someone. Maybe if they’re prepared, the peak practitioners can stop it.”
Juniper sincerely doubted it. Whatever had destroyed the world, it was beyond anything she could imagine. Evie might have thought otherwise, but… she hadn’t been there. Juniper had.
“If you want to be forced into an asylum, be my guest,” Juniper said. “But don’t tell them you got the idea from me.”
Evie’s eyes bored into Juniper for a full minute–Juniper was getting uncomfortable under her friend’s searching gaze. Finally, she nodded. “Fine. I’ll go through my family’s channels so it won’t be traced back to us.”
Juniper breathed a sigh of relief. More scrutiny was the last thing she needed–not while she held Skystrall’s legacy.
“But were you really planning on doing nothing?” Evie asked.
Juniper blinked. “I mean–yeah? I was kind of hoping it wouldn’t happen again.” That was only a half truth. The idea of the event happening again was just too viscerally disturbing to consider. She hadn’t even thought it might happen again.
Evie gave Juniper a scathing look–then she threw a pillow at Juniper’s head.
***
The final week before the event passed like a breeze. Having already sat through the classes, Juniper didn’t even pay attention. Her thoughts had been taken over by Skystrall’s book, leaving little for the daily happenings.
When Sunday arrived, Juniper remained at the academy. She couldn’t–wouldn’t–go through the memorial again. It hurt too much, especially now that she’d had a chance to save the twins and failed.
Their deaths were on her shoulders.
She was hiding in the bathroom with the book when the sun fell below the horizon, so she didn’t see the sky break into a billion pieces.
But the end of the world did not need observers. It happened anyway.
The world went white.
Class was now in session.