Chapter 6

Six

Kyrith

I ’m not sure why I’m here again, listening in on Hopkinson’s lecture as he bounds around the room like an excitable pinniped. Well, that’s not true. Several hundred years has given me plenty of time to know my own mind, I simply don’t want to admit that a small part of me, which was so excited to attend the University for the Arcane Arts, is desperate to claim this tiny taste of what my life could’ve been like.

Because it’s pathetic.

I haven’t sat in on any since the first. It was clearly too distracting for Hopkinson and his students. But it’s a new week, and the metaphorical itch that accompanies being left out has burrowed beneath my skin. So here I am, hovering inside a bookcase, watching unseen from the shadows of the darkened room as he lifts a scrap and sends magic into it, burning it to ashes in order to conjure the next slide onto the projector.

A symmetrical tree stretches faded branches and roots across the image, with eleven swirling vortexes of power and six triangular symbols arranged across it.

The Tree of Life. I already know about this. It’s literally the most basic lesson he could be teaching.

Still, I don’t leave.

“Of course, you’re all familiar with the five fundamental schools of magic.” Hopkinson waves at the centre of the tree where the vortex representing the school of conjuration sits, surrounded on all sides by the schools of illusion, alchemy, ensorcellment, and nullification. The symbols for the four classical elements sit at the corners, joining the five schools together in a rectangle.

“This is where the majority of Arcanists spend their time and energy. I’m sure your families and tutors have already exposed you to certain prejudices, especially when it comes to alchemy, which is woefully underestimated.”

I love alchemy. It had been the subject I’d been most excited to study when I joined the university. It’s precisely why I rearranged the Arcanaeum to give Botanical Hall the best light and space—aside from the Rotunda. A melancholy sadness hits me, and I blink through it—though blinking really loses its impact when you can still ‘see’ through your eyelids.

Tilting my head, I summon twenty copies of my favourite book on the subject from storage. They’re thick tomes, but I’ve painstakingly restored all of them, so they appear as new as the day they were stitched as I drop them in the laps of Hopkinson’s students.

“Thank you, Librarian!” Hopkinson yells at the ceiling, as if I’m lurking up there. “Yes, this is an excellent tome on the practical uses of alchemy and the basic botanical herbs. In fact, I’d like to make it required reading for the year.”

There are grumbles, and more than one glare is shot at the ceiling rose, as if they’re cursing me silently. What is with everyone thinking I’m floating in the eaves?

Besides, I finished that book in two weeks. A year is plenty of time.

“Who can tell me why alchemy is looked down on by many arcanists?” Hopkinson continues, pointing into the far corner and selecting the gorgeous girl with her hair in a long braid who’s practically trying to wiggle her way onto Lambert’s lap. “Larissa, give it a shot.”

“Because most of it is just crushing herbs and stuff,” she says, shrugging. “It uses so little magic that even a dull could?—”

A book flies out and smacks her around the back of the head before she can finish.

“An inept could not do alchemy because there are still incantations required,” Hopkinson corrects, gentler in his rebuke than I am. “Please remember, in times past, that word was a slur.”

“But it’s not anymore,” Larissa argues, staring him down. “Why are you letting that creepy old ghost assault your students over nothing?”

Dear magic, she thinks that’s assault? Has she never been switched? Mistress White—the inept who ran the orphanage where I was raised—would’ve taken the cane to the soles of my feet until they bled if I’d ever dared show my elders this level of disrespect.

A dozen more books fly into the air, poised and ready in silent threat. Then they retreat just as swiftly when a tiny voice in the back of my mind whispers that I spent my younger years swearing I would never be anything like Mistress White.

My sigh echoes around the shelves, making the pages flutter.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Hopkinson recovers quickly, brushing over the incident. “None of the five fundamental schools are without value.”

“Yeah, but weak liminal bastards are,” one of the boys at the back grumbles.

For a second, I debate smacking him over the head with a book, but ultimately decide against it. If hitting every adept who believed such nonsense with a book worked, I’d have cured society of prejudice by now. Besides, I’m too impatient for Hopkinson to move on to the other schools. A grim part of me wants to know if he’ll mention the dark inked vortex at the bottom of the tree.

“And surrounding the foundation schools”—Magister Hopkinson extends his telescopic metal pointer and traces the four diagonal lines above and below the four classical elements—“are the advanced schools: divination, manipulation—also known as the higher schools—and transmutation and destruction, the lower schools. Who can tell me why they’re advanced, and why they’re referred to as higher and lower? Yes, Anabella.”

The fuzzy-haired girl straightens her glasses and replies in a peppy voice. “They’re advanced because only powerful alchemists have enough magic to use them. And they’re called higher and lower because divination and manipulation are associated with the element of aether and closest to restoration, which is master-level magic. But transmutation and destruction are physical and closest to the element of decay.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “And the forbidden school.”

She can’t even say the name. For magic’s sake. What is this world coming to?

“Necromancy,” Hopkinson agrees without missing a beat. “Which is also a master-level school, for all its abhorrence. That is why necromancers are so dangerous. Not only are they practising forbidden magic; they are among the most powerful arcanists in the world. But we won’t dwell on that until next term. This week we’re studying the foundation schools. I simply wanted you all to appreciate how all of them”—he traces the lines connecting the schools and the elements—“link together. Elements of illusion can be useful in manipulation. Alchemical potions can aid or hinder a divinator’s ability to read auras and the unseen. I’ve also yet to meet a master of restoration who didn’t have an excellent grasp of the foundation schools. The tree of life connects all magic.”

He pauses, taking a deep breath before turning back to his desk and holding up a new book.

“Today, however, we will be focusing primarily on conjuration, the nexus of all eleven schools. So please find your textbooks, turn to page six, and read quietly while I mark your papers from our last lesson.”

“Hey, Kyrith?” Lambert whispers under his breath, drawing my attention to the table I’ve been studiously ignoring. “Is this a punishment for looming yesterday?” He waves at his new required reading. “I thought that rule only applied to North.”

They’ve taken a position in the back corner of the room, and I note with grim curiosity that it’s the same one I was sitting in during the last lesson. The girl on Lambert’s lap—Larissa—shifts as she realises she hasn’t got his attention, then smiles to herself as his large hand comes to rest on her butt.

I don’t blame her. Lambert’s lap looks warm and comfortable and?—

Wait. No. I did not just think that. Shaking away the absolutely ridiculous thought, I scowl at them both as his hand moves back and forth while he waits for my reply. Did I not make a rule about no fornicating in the library? I thought that was a given.

Galileo scoffs, looking up from my chair, which he seems to have claimed for his own. “Only you would see reading as punishment.”

He’s wrong, though. Much of the class is looking at their books with a mixture of trepidation and uncertainty. North pokes at his like it might bite him, then flips through the thick tome with a kind of frustrated despair in his cold gold eyes.

My fingers twitch as I debate giving him a strike for disrespecting the books.

“Wait. You figured out her name?” Galileo hisses, looking up sharply to pin Lambert to the spot as he belatedly realises he failed to use my proper address. “When did you—?” He cuts off as North’s jaw clenches.

“What does it matter? No one cares about the name of a dead girl.”

I flinch, and the books on the shelves visibly shudder as the Arcanaeum reacts angrily. I don’t get a chance to see what it plans to do because Lambert abandons Larissa’s ass to cuff his friend upside the head, and Galileo fixes him with a glare.

“Page. Six,” the quiet, studious ó Rinn scolds. “Until you know more about magic than the ‘dead girl,’ you don’t have the right to criticise.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Lambert agrees.

He doesn’t have to defend me—I’m well aware of how few people care about me—but Galileo is being hypocritical. He may appear to be reading the textbook, but I’m not fooled. There’s an illusion over the cover, and the Arcanaeum recognises the real book as one from the Divination tower.

Has he already read the chapter on conjuration, or does he simply not care about the lesson? Indignation flares as I realise he’s disregarding the education I would’ve done anything to receive. With a flick of my hand, I switch his book for the correct one, ignoring his tiny, hitched breath of surprise.

“Page six.” I lean down to whisper in his ear, flicking to the conjuration chapter for him.

Then I settle in to read over his shoulder, remaining invisible even though I know that he can likely feel the chill of my presence. Yes, I’ve probably got the book memorised by now, but that’s not the point. I’ve never once had the contents taught to me.

Galileo’s head turns minutely, almost like he can see me—but that’s not possible—before turning his attention to the chapter without complaint.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve done this, reading beside him just for his company. It’s not quite as relaxing here as it is in the Astrology Room, but it still makes the shelves around us ease a little, just the same.