A Practical Guide to Sorcery (Books 1 & 2)

Chapter 13 - Objects in Mirror (Part 1)

Sebastien

Month 10, Day 16, Friday 1:00 p.m.

Instead of escorting her off University premises, the proctor the bearded professor had called helped her to her feet and out of the only other door in the room. No students waited on the other side, just another proctor standing behind a desk. She handed Sebastien a partial map of the University. "Go to the library. Administration is to the right once you walk in the main doors."

Sebastien stumbled her way there, pausing to gasp in wonder as she realized the line connecting the main building—the Citadel—to the library was actually a walkway surrounded in glass, like a little tunnel. 'This must have cost thousands of gold crowns.' She looked up to the sun as it peeked out from behind clouds. Where the rays hit the glass, the light fragmented into rainbow bursts. It was bewitching, and she stood there and stared until the clouds covered the sun again.

When she reached the end of the tunnel, she stopped in awe once again.

She stood in the library. The entranceway opened up into a large circle of white marble flooring. The staircases reached up three levels, which were open in the center to let the shimmering, spelled glass of the domed ceiling shine down. Beyond the inner open area, which had a couple of desks attended by employees, the bookcases stretched off for hundreds of feet. She even saw a couple of staircases leading down below the ground.

She tried to do a quick calculation of how many books the library must contain, but quickly lost her place. She shook her head, still feeling woozy from pushing herself too hard. 'More books than I can read in a year, that much I know. More books than I could read in a lifetime, perhaps.' Her cheeks were hot, and she realized belatedly that she was grinning like a madman.

A young man about her age leaned over and waved his arm slowly in front of her, a consternated look on his face. "Hello?" he said.

She realized then that he'd been trying to get her attention. Perhaps for a while. She cleared her throat. "Yes?"

"New student?" he asked, some understanding tingeing the smile he gave her. "It is amazing, I know. You aren't the first to have such a reaction. Perhaps, when you're in your fourth term, you can get an assistant position here."

She nodded, trying to contain the cold shivers that were still attacking in waves. She'd drawn warmth from more than her extremities.

"You'll find the admissions office through there." He pointed, eyeing her with a little more worry. "They handle contribution points, student tokens, the mail room, that kind of thing. You can choose your classes and set up payment arrangements there."

She nodded gratefully to him and walked through the door he indicated, where a bored-looking man gave her a pen, which she struggled to hold with her frozen fingers. "Choose your classes," the man said, sliding a piece of paper forward. "No more than seven, no less than the four mandatory classes. Fifty gold for each class." He asked for her name, then burnt it into a rectangular wooden token on a leather strap. Her University student token. Proof that she was admitted here. She ran her thumb over the sky kraken burnt into the back of it, the soothing smell of charred wood making her smile.

When she stared blankly at the signup sheet, the man sighed softly. "No need to be frightened, boy. The professors may be intimidating, but you passed. You should have gone over the list of classes and made your choices already. Do you not know what you wish to take?"

She shook her head. "I know what I want to take." The scroll the admissions attendant had given her before hadn't had the names of the professors who taught each class. Now, she stared down at the words "Grandmaster Thaddeus Lacer" next to the class he had told her to take, "Introduction to Practical Will-based Casting." He was the teacher.