bird cocked her head to one side. “Scratch.”
“All right, but the message?”
The bird hopped onto the cot and waddled over to Nicodemus. Using her beak to grab onto his robes, the familiar pulled herself onto his lap and presented the top of her head to be scratched; Nicodemus obliged.
“Azure, the message from Magister is important.”
The bird whistled two notes before casting a barrage of golden sentences from her head to Nicodemus’s.
Languages like Numinous, which could manipulate light and other text, were often used to encode written messages. The spell that Azure had just cast was one such.
The problem was that Numinous had a complex structure, and so a cacographer’s touch misspelled all but the simplest Numinous sentences. That is why Nicodemus had to work quickly to translate Shannon’s message. The longer he held the text in his mind, the faster his disability would distort its spelling.
Numinous runes possessed fluid shapes resembling tendrils of smoke or threads of spun glass. Translating them made a spellwright’s fingers feel as if they were touching smooth glass. As he worked, Nicodemus’s fingers twitched with phantom sensation.
Shannon’s message was complicated, and when Nicodemus finished translating, it was garbled:
Nicodemus—
Do n’t discuss tonight’s conversaton w/ anyone, incldng roomates. V. important to atract littel attn. As planed, come to my study direclty after brecfast. You are excused from aprentice duty four the day.
—Mg. Shannon
Azure presented the back of her head again. “Scratch?”
Nicodemus absently stroked the bird’s feathers. Shannon’s instruction to avoid attention was worrisome. Nicodemus did not know what was prompting the old man’s vigilance, but he had no doubt that it was serious.
“Sweet heaven, the druids,” Nicodemus whispered, remembering how his attempt to impress Deirdre had elicited a barrage of questions about prophecy and his disability. “Magister is going to kill me.”
“Scratch?” Azure repeated.
Nicodemus looked down and realized that in his distraction he had stopped petting the familiar. “I’m sorry, Azure. I’m exhausted.” It was true—his eyes stung, his bones ached, his thoughts seemed slow as pine sap. “I’d better sleep if I’m going to help Magister tomorrow.”
“Scratch?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
Finally convinced that she was not going to be petted, Azure hopped over to the window. She made her two-note whistle and flapped away into the night.
Blinking his weary eyes, Nicodemus went to the washstand and, rubbing his hands together, forged the small white runes wizards used for soap. Looking into his polished-metal mirror, he was shocked to see two pink sentences written across his forehead.
At first a scowl darkened his face, but then he laughed.
She must have written some witty prose indeed to sneak the Jejunus curse onto him without his noticing.
Careful not to trip in the dim firelight, Nicodemus stepped through the common room to Devin’s door. Muted voices came from the other side. He knocked and walked in.
Simple John and Devin were sitting on her bed playing cat’s cradle, John’s favorite. They looked up.
“This was well done,” Nicodemus said while gesturing to his forehead and the pink words that read:
I Hate Fun.
But I LOVE Donkey Piss!
AFTER DEVIN HAD disspelled the curse from Nicodemus’s forehead, the three floormates gossiped about other cacographers and apprentices: who might be promoted, who was sneaking into whose bed, that sort of thing.
Though still exhausted, Nicodemus was happy to stay up with his friends and forget about druids and Astrophell delegates and the other nebulous dangers the night had presented.
As they talked, John and Nicodemus played cat’s cradle while Devin brushed out Nicodemus’s long raven hair.
“Why in heaven’s name,” she grumbled, “did the Creator waste such soft, glossy stuff on a man.”
Afterward she started to braid her own wiry red hair. “You know,” she said, “I’ve never been sure why all the magical societies have to send delegates to these convocations.”
“There’s never been one in Starhaven before?” Nicodemus asked without looking up from the game of cat’s cradle.
“Not since I’ve been here. They only happen once every thirty years, and they have to rotate through all the other libraries and monasteries or whatever.”
Nicodemus chewed his lip. “Well, I don’t know all the details about why the convocations happen, but—”
“—but you’ve memorized everything Shannon’s ever said about them,” Devin interjected with a leer.
He stuck his tongue out at her and continued. “So, back during the Dialect Wars—when the Neosolar Empire was falling and the new kingdoms were forming—spellwrights would join the fighting. The result was so bloody that the people couldn’t protect themselves from the lycanthropes or kobolds or whatever. For a while, it seemed there might not be any humans left, so all the magical societies signed treaties agreeing never again to take part in the wars that kingdoms fought.”
Devin grunted. “And so now all magical societies have to renew their treaties at these conventions or we’ll all end up in lycanthrope bellies?”
Nicodemus shrugged. “Something like that. It’s complicated. Some societies cheat. I think Magister Shannon was involved in stopping the wizards and hierophants from clashing in the Spirish Civil War. But I’m not sure; he never talks about the war.”
Simple John tried to say “Simple John” but yawned instead. Nicodemus ended the game of cat’s cradle and sent the big man lumbering off to bed.
Nicodemus started for his own room but then stopped at Devin’s door. “Dev, when should I ask Shannon about teaching again? With the convocation happening, things are probably too busy.”
She was tapping her chin with the end of her braid. “Actually, the busier wizards are, the more they want to unload their teaching duties onto apprentices. But it’s not Magister you need to convince. It’s the other wizards who gripe when a cacographer gets in front of a classroom.”
Nicodemus nodded and thought about what it would feel like to finally earn a hood. Then he remembered something. “Dev, have you ever worked with Magister Smallwood?”
“That sweet old linguist who’s got less common sense than a drunken chicken? Yeah, I used to run Shannon’s messages to him back when you were still trying to undress that Amy Hern girl. Do you ever hear from her?”
Nicodemus folded his arms. “I don’t, but never mind that. I had a conversation with Smallwood today. Nothing important. But he said I was Shannon’s ‘new cacographic project’ or his new ‘pet cacographer.’ Do you know if there are current rumors going around about Magister?”
Devin dropped her braid and hopped out of bed. “Ignore it. Smallwood’s just being a ninny.” She went to her washstand and began to scrub her face. “So what class do you want to teach?”
“Anything to do with composition. But you’re avoiding my question. What are the rumors about Shannon and ‘pet cacographers’?”
Devin toweled her face. “Just academics gossiping and being petty.”
“Dev, not once in the past nine years have I known you to refrain from gossiping.”
“So