She turned to the shelf, mumbling to herself and placing her thumb and forefinger on her chin. “Ah, here we are,” she said, pulling an old book from a shelf about the height of my shoulder. It was quickly followed by several more. She turned, placing them in my arms. “Will you be studying here or taking them with you?”
“I think I’ll stay here for a bit.”
I’d stay here forever if I could.
Maggie nodded and moved slowly back down the stairs to her organizational task and I followed, pulling out a chair at one of the few large desks arranged between the two ethereal looking trees. Their rough trunks were gnarled and twisted with canopies of silver-green leaves that came to sharp points. There was something comforting about the pair that always seemed to draw me near.
“How do you keep these big trees so happy in here?”
“Magic,” Maggie answered without even glancing my way.
Flipping open the first book, I scanned the pages about the history of the source wells, most of which I had learned as a child. Both nations controlled a magical source, a well of sorts, that produced one of the two types of resources required for magic use.
I glanced down at the sketches of the two distinctly different types of crystal that were depicted on the page. My fingers traced the first of the crystals, terra, then flowed over to its sibling, caeli. Terra was a fine crystalline element that spread magical essence through the earth, whereas caeli grew as large crystals and radiated essence through the air.
Where both essences overlapped and intermingled, magic could be performed by mages. That is, until the element was used up—dissolving back into the raw, unusable magic that created it—and more was needed to replace it. Hence the trade. Taramur controlled the caeli well, while Splendor controlled the terra one.
Each nation had set up a grid system to keep what amounted to magical electricity, or perhaps ‘magical wifi’, flowing throughout their territory.
I turned toward Maggie who was mumbling to herself as she arranged and rearranged books. Unable to decide whether the telepathy section should be organized by power level, consistency of objects moved, or alphabetically by author, this was something she did fairly regularly.
“Hey, Maggie?”
“Yes, dear?” she asked, without looking up.
“Have the source wells ever…run out?”
“Where is that…oh, there you are!” She grabbed a small book and shoved it into place.
“Mags?”
“Hmm, what?” She paused, then snapped her fingers. “Right, the wells. Let’s see. I remember times in history where one or the other were temporarily depleted, and people went days to months without magic. It usually ended in disaster—mages going crazy and killing each other.” She raised a finger in the air. “And norms too.”
The late afternoon sun shone through the windows, casting a wide beam on the table in front of me. I could see tiny dust motes floating in the air. The entire building gave off a small tingling of warm magic as if it were embedded in its bones.
“We’re addicts, and magic is our drug,” I mumbled.
“Let’s just say it’s a situation we’d all like to avoid,” she agreed, nodding.
I flipped open the next book, looking for one of the catastrophes Maggie had described. Many wars had been fought over control of the wells. Each one having similar territorial issues, especially the ones in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In fact, most of the major world wars had mage involvement to some level. Some mage was pissed off somewhere and thought everyone should fight about it.
The most recent war for our specific well sparked the Mexican-American War. Since then, a couple hundred mile wide ‘no-magic zone’ had been set up between the nations—a demilitarized zone, of sorts. The gap was large enough that long-range magical attacks were useless. People couldn’t fight what they couldn’t reach.
We would have to physically invade. Invade with an army of, I don’t know, elite magical warriors, or something.
A frustrated breath left my lungs.
Where are all the sane rulers when you need them?
“I know they’re still banned, but are you sure you don’t have any books about what happened to the previous magnate?” I asked.
Maggie’s face paled, her eyes darting about the empty room. “You know that I don’t, child.”
“But you were friends with her.”
“I was. She once trusted me with a very special task,” she said.
Really?
“What was it?” I asked.
“One day, I’ll tell you.”
“But…”
“One day,” she repeated.
The woman was more stubborn than anyone I’d ever met. If she didn’t want to tell me something, nothing I could say would change her mind. The only thing that might work was telling her who I was, and that was off the table. I dropped my hands to the desk in frustration before my gaze slowly shifted back to the book in front of me.
“Fine. Keep your secrets. Did you know that the mining at our caldera has improved considerably in the last few decades? I think your book here might be out of date.” I held it up.
Maggie paused, looking up at me. “You have the oddest interests of any twenty-something-year-old I know. Why aren’t you reading that new romance novel by what’s-her-face?”
My shoulders lifted in a shrug. “It’s an important topic. We gotta keep all this going so that the magic continues to flow throughout the entire mage world. Don’t you find that fascinating?”
She snorted, ignoring my question entirely.
I rolled my eyes. Well, I did. So much effort went into allowing us to use our magical skills, including the trade.
So I’m a nerd—so what.
In the next few days, Taramur would send a group of delegates to discuss how the trade would commence over the coming five years. Since I would be overseeing all of this one day—caeli willing—I found it intriguing.
“What do you remember from the last trade talks?” I asked, curious to hear her answer, even though I had attended back then.
“Utterly boring rubbish.” She waved her hand. “I don’t know why you even want to know. They reported things in the papers like updates to the amounts and timeframes for delivery. Other commodities, like magical artifacts, were presented in an attempt to sweeten certain deals.”
My fingers instinctively ran across the amulet in my pocket. An artifact like the one I typically wore around my neck would be coveted by all parties, if they knew it existed.
In generations past, it was typically used for espionage, not some harebrained scheme like my mother’s to deform and discredit her own heir. My mother made sure to keep it powered-up with her magic, which is how she programmed my disguise.
“If you ask me, you should be out having a good time. Not cooped up in here, learning about trade business. We really need to find you a boyfriend. There’s that dating app that all you magelings are using. What’s it called?”
She thought for a moment, finally snapping her fingers. “Rapture! That’s it. I’m told you just swipe your magic wand to the right and… what?” she asked, finally noticing my appalled expression.
A sigh escaped my lips as I shook my head.
She shrugged and went back to her organizing.