Ceyda had the distinct impression she was floating. Her feet weren’t on the ground, but neither was anything else. She flailed blindly, and felt nothing impeding her in any direction. She couldn’t see anything either, and everything around her was completely dark.

Wait, were her eyes closed? They were!

Ceyda opened her eyes, to see she was in a completely white plain of nothingness. Was this a hallucination? Was she hallucinating? She’d never hallucinated before. She had read that it was impossible to tell that a hallucination was actually a hallucination, but this one seemed pretty obvious.

Floating along with her, were the three servant boys and the woman.

“I just wanted to steal a damn book!” the woman shrieked, her voice turning raspy from the scream.

The servants were all screaming in one variety or another. Ceyda tried to scream, but found her bracelet still shocked her, even when hallucinating, so she opted to watch instead.

The book appeared, much larger. Now Ceyda could see it in detail. It was a brown leather book with a smooth emerald in the center.

It vibrated and shook, and from its pages emerged a shadowy figure.

A full blown human being, flickering in and out of existence. They were tall, and dressed in a dark blue outfit--either a robe or a dress. Long black hair cascaded to their legs.

“Someone… called to me,” the book being said softly, in a rough voice. “Who was it?”

“Uh… me? It was me. Traveled across most of Kesterline to get here, just for you!” the pale woman said.

“What is your name?” The book being asked, tilting their head. Ceyda couldn’t see their eyes from this angle, or their expression.

“...I’m not telling you that!” the woman spat.

The book being frowned. “You are not the one who called out to me.”

“That’s some bullshit, I definitely was!” the woman yelled.

“Would you consent to a test of character?” the being from the book asked.

Oh great. It was a religious book. Ceyda was a lot less enthused by that. Tests of character and the self were the worst part of prayer. They often had no correct answer, but boy did her mother seem disappointed with whatever she picked!

“Yeah, sure, whatever, test me out,” the woman said.

“That was not merely a question for you,” the book being looked around at the three floating servant boys and Ceyda.

The boys nodded, one at a time.

Everyone stared at Ceyda nervously.

“Do you kill us if we get it wrong?” Ceyda asked.

The being shook their head. “Of course not.”

“What happens if we do get it wrong?”

“You will simply be placed to where you were before I emerged, without the grimoire.”

“Oh, then obviously yes I want to try it out,” Ceyda replied. Strange to ask for consent on something so risk free. This entire time Ceyda had been psyching herself up for a fight to the death.

She didn’t think she would win any of those fights, but one of the servant boys looked scrawny and underfed. She could probably win in a fight to the death against him. But there would be no fight, so her “very good at biting cousins until they bleed” skill would remain untested for a little bit longer.

The being in the book--the grimoire? Was that the term it had used? Grimoire?

Regardless, the being turned to the strange woman.

“What would you say is your greatest flaw?”

Ceyda groaned. She hated questions like this. All right she would have to think of an answer to this now.

“That I’m not strong enough?” the woman asked, narrowing her eyes. “Is that what you want? Or is it humility? Is this about prostrating myself or being worthy of your power?”

The being frowned, and turned to the three servant boys.

“What would you say is your greatest flaw?”

“I lie to everyone I know. Also I have a bad temper. Also I’m rude. Also I have low self esteem. Uh--uh--”

“I take my anger out on others and push them away.”

“Fuck. Shit. I don’t know. Um. I stole that kettle once. Um--fuck. I dunno I’m a huge piece of shit who doesn’t want kids?”

The being nodded and stroked their human-ish chin.

“And you?”

“Does it--” Ceyda faltered. “How long can the answer be?”

“There is no format, all I ask for is an answer. Answer it however you wish.”

“Well, I don’t think I really know what my largest flaw is, but I do know what others think it is--” Ceyda said. “So for example, my mother thinks it’s that I’m sadistic, and do everything to hurt her. I don’t really care about other people. My brother, however, thinks I’m a huge loser. That I bring disgrace to the family name. I am fairly certain my father does not care about me but I think if he had to name my flaw, it would be that I don’t know enough about him to know what he thinks my biggest flaw is, and that I’m an idiot for not being smart enough to just know what it is.”

“I see--”

“No I’m not done,” Ceyda babbled. “I don’t really understand other people too well, so I guess that’s also flaw, but I do know what others have told me, and it’s rarely that. My cousins who live in Bretheque, they used to tell me I never paid attention and that I was brainless. My doctor says I have too many toxic ruminations, and I need to do more cleansing exercises or I’ll die before I’m thirty, barren and toothless. Our Ritesgiver, however, he says that my actual issue is that I am trying to reject my core, and that if I merely embraced my inability to be competent, I’d be a lot happier as a person.”

“--you have--”

“Of course, if we take all this together, I think I can roughly assume that my biggest flaw is that I have a very, very bad brain, that messes up everything for me all the time, but to be honest I don’t actually believe that, and it feels like something I say to appease people because if everyone sees it, it has to be true, right? So for me, personally, if I had to say what my biggest flaw on a gut level was, like gutteral no second thoughts, is that I am absolutely abysmal at explaining myself well. But isn’t that a pathetic flaw? It sounds like I am bragging! Oh, I am bad at showing how good of a person I am! So even if I think it--it’s probably not the case, right? And then, a few seconds earlier, I just said I really wanted to be special and was mad I wasn’t, and that is new, and I have no idea where it came from, and frankly it worries me and I think someone was putting foreign thoughts in my brain through evil magic.”

Ceyda paused and clasped her hands together. “Do I need to uh, pick one?”

The being smiled faintly.

“I think--”

“Wait!” Ceyda blurted out. “I just remembered another! I had an ex-friend named Talius. He would probably say that my problem is I’m the most annoying creature on the planet. Okay now I’m actually done.”

“I think you have answered quite sufficiently, Ceyda Lucrece.”

“Oh. Thanks, yay,” Ceyda said. She frowned. “Wait I didn’t tell you my name.”

The being floated closer to her.To Ceyda’s surprised, she didn’t look human, now up close. More like fog in human shape, with red eyes staring into her soul.

“How old are you?” the being asked.

“Sixteen,” Ceyda replied.

The fog got closer, and the others in the hallucination faded out of sight.

“Ceyda, I have a question for you,” the fog said.

“Another one?”

“Yes.”

There was silence as Ceyda waited for the question.

“Are you willing to hear it?” the fog asked.

“Yes, of course,” Ceyda said to the strange fog.

“Do you wish to take on a burden?”

“I don’t understand,” Ceyda said, trying to see if there was a body in all that fog.

“I’ve been looking for a host for centuries. Your heart… it called out to me. Stronger than any I’ve heard before. Will you do the honor of being my partner?” the fog asked.

“Of course!” Ceyda answered, not knowing if she was even allowed to say no to the supreme power of The Fog.

“Then let me be your grimoire. Let me be your soul’s other half. Let me into the very core of your being, and let’s do amazing things together,” the fog said.

Ceyda shifted uncomfortably. That sure sounded like a lot of responsibilities for things she didn’t understand would be terrible at explaining. “Am I allowed to say no?”

“Of course.”

“And what happens if I do?”

The fog was motionless. “I return to my hibernation. How many years are left of this era?”

“What do you mean?” Ceyda asked.

“How long until the avatars return?” the fog asked.

“What are avatars?” Ceyda stared at the fog blankly.

“...I see,” the fog said quietly. It had a note of sadness to its alien tone.

The fog swirled around silently. Words pierced the hallucination like knives. From outside the strange white room--

“I found them! They’re in the servant corridor!”

It was much too loud. Much too annoying. Much more real than anything happening here. The vast white room began to shake, fractioning and falling apart.

The pale woman swore, and promptly vanished from the white room, leaving Ceyda and the servant boys behind.

“I have run out of time, it would seem,” the fog said mournfully.

“I say yes!” Ceyda said. “You can do whatever you want! Please! Be my uh--soul partner? Whatever it is you just said!”

The fog dissipated, and swirled back into the book. It snapped shut, and Ceyda was left floating in the white void by herself, with even the servant boys gone from the world.

Had it worked? Had she said yes in time? She wasn’t going to be trapped here forever, was she? That would be very bad. Especially since she still had that stupid bracelet attached.

The book rose up to face her. This was, admittedly, the first time she had gotten a good look at it. It was an old, leather book, thickly bound, with a single emerald in the center.

Gold liquid swirled around it, leaving dust behind.

Then, slowly, engraved onto the book itself, the word: Ceyda Lucrece.

She reached out, and numbly touched this strange, magical spell book. Her--her magical spell book? Her grimoire?

Was--was she a mage now?

That… that wasn’t possible. For so many reasons.

The word pounded in her head.

Mage.

Mage.

What would this let her do? What spells could she cast? Imagine her brother’s face when she told him! Imagine her mother! Her father!

She had always known there was more to her than just being a chatelaine! There had to have been! There was no way her life could have, truly, just been an endless parade of societal mores and marriage and learning a small trade to keep her occupied between raising children and running a household.

The truth hit her chest as it seized up. She had always known she was special, deep down, but never before had it really been confirmed. She had been confirmed to be weird, strange, unnaturally overloaded with ruminations, but--

She had a grimoire.

She was going to be a mage.

Mage Ceyda.

She liked the sound of it.

The world collapsed around her, and Ceyda held the book at her chest. It was warm, pleasant, and like nothing she ever held before.

For one brief moment, she held the hallucination, and everything was perfect.

But the second brief moment was a lot less comfortable.

Her head hit hard rock, and Ceyda jolted up, confused and disoriented.

She expected to be on the floor of the servant hallway, but instead all her weight was pressed on a single point, around her stomach, like she was draped over a bedframe.

“Ah fuck--she’s awake!” a voice groaned.

“Damnation, Lyle. You just had to walk straight into a Crown’s gifted wall, huh?

“It’s dark!”

“Let me talk to her, set her down--”

Ceyda found herself unceremoniously hitting the floor. To her surprise, the book was still with her. She was clutching it in a death grip.

She stared at the book groggily. To her surprise, despite her lack of glasses, and the sheer dark, she could read it perfectly.

There was her name, engraved in gold ink.

“All right, listen up,” one of the servant boys said, staring her down. He had glasses of his own, just like hers. “We don’t want any funny business, you got that?”

“I don’t think I’m capable of delivering any business,” Ceyda said flatly.

“Good. We’re going to put a bag over your head. If you scream, we’ll kill you,” the servant boy said.

Ceyda frowned. Another death threat? In the same day? She looked down at her red bracelet. It had rubbed her skin raw, and she was bleeding from it. This day was just going to keep being tough, wasn’t it? Honestly, she had a magical book! She would very much like things to go well instead!

“I won’t scream,” Ceyda muttered. “I promise.”

“Good,” the servant boy said, before putting something itchy and bag shaped over her head.

Her parents were going to kill her. But they would actually, literally, kill these three servant boys. It wasn’t like she could disagree with kidnapping herself. If she had been in that position, she would have done the same!

Besides, if she was kidnapped, then her parents couldn’t blame her for anything that went wrong. She had no idea if they’d be proud or annoyed that she took a book from the Blanche’s private collection and gained a bond with a strange talking fog, but the kidnapping would definitely mean that if they were mad at her, they’d at least be nice about it.

And she was once again incredibly curious, especially as the servant boys were not moving, and instead were arguing amongst themselves.

“How much time do we have before they find us, you think?” the third boy rasped.

“I dunno, man. We’ll wait for Opal to get back. She’ll know what to do,” the servant who had just bagged Ceyda said.

“What if she doesn’t, Merlin? We were supposed to steal this book before anyone even got in. And now some princess has it, what? Attuned to her? How the fuck does that work?”

“I just can’t believe we would have gotten away with it if someone else hadn’t also been stealing it!” Lyle, the one who had carried her, piped up. “What are the odds.”

“Pretty high,” Merlin said. “Considering, you know. It’s been in a vault for the last fifty years.”

“Right, but no one else knew it was going public. We only knew because Opal’s a servant here, and she’s the only reason we were able to infiltrate the mansion. So how did that other dude know?” Lyle said, his voice getting close as he picked up Ceyda again. Ceyda briefly considered if she should put up a struggle, but thought against it. She didn’t want to irritate her bracelet, and she was learning a lot. It would be better to pay attention to her surroundings.

“You think that mage was a guy?” the as of yet unnamed third servant boy asked. Based on their voices, Ceyda tried to tie them back to the answers they gave. Merlin, the scrawny one, had said he lied a lot. And she was fairly certain this servant boy had been the one to panic and say he sucked.

Lyle, the one carrying her, had been the one to state he pushed people he loved away.

She was curious as to why those answers hadn’t worked. The unnamed servant boy, that made sense, he didn’t seem to know himself. But Ceyda hadn’t known either. Neither had the woman, really.

“Well, yeah. What’s more likely? There’s a woman who can cast magic, or that some super bony dude put on a dress and just pretended to be a flat chested woman so we’d underestimate him?” Lyle said.

“Either way, that mage practically slaughtered us. Opal wasn’t kidding about mages. They’re horrifying.” Merlin muttered.

“We should uh, probably stop discussing this,” the unnamed servant boy said.

“What do you mean, Aster?”

“I--I mean that we currently have a hostage and we’ve been dropping names like it was a night in the hay.”

Was that some sort of working class slang? Ceyda hadn’t heard it before.

“...oh,” Merlin said. “Sorry.”

“Yeah. Sorry,” Lyle said. “...wait, we have a hostage now, don’t we?”

“No, Lyle, we’re just keeping her as a pet! Yes she’s a hostage! What did you think this was? We’re abducting her! Literally, straight out of a fancy mansion!” Merlin hissed.

“Right but… that’s the death penalty,” Lyle said quietly. “Dude, I don’t want to die.”

“It was your idea to take her!” Aster hissed.

“And why the fuck were you listening to what I said? That sounds like a you problem!”

“Then drop her on the road!” Aster shot back.

“We can’t just leave her here now,” Merlin cut in. “We already did the part that will get us killed! Literally every part of this plan could have gotten us killed, and she saw all of it! And she’s heard us talk about it!”

“Maybe Opal knows about some noble memory erasing shit,” Lyle said. “You remember that thing she said about the wands?”

“Fat lot of good that will do if none of us can cast magic. Since. That’s what the spellbook was supposed to do,” Merlin replied glumly.

“I too like sharing our plan to the hostage. This is fun, I am so glad we speak honestly so anyone can hear us,” Aster said.

“We almost died, dude. The adrenaline is messing with my brain, majorly. So why don’t you just remove the stick up your ass and sit in some ice, yeah?” Lyle replied.

“Why don’t you sit in some ice you sideways freak,” Aster hissed back.

There was a moment of awkward movement and silence. All Ceyda could hear was Lyle’s heavy breathing.

“All right,” Lyle finally spoke. “Compromise. No one speaks. Until we get back. Deal?”

“Deal.” the other two boys said in unison.

And with that, a silence fell over the group, leaving Ceyda alone with her thoughts and the idle noises of the outside world.