I couldn’t ignore it. There must have been a reason for Heliar’s recent obsession with the city. And he seemed more solemn with his request today. The man in black probably came from the city. That’s where true sages were. I needed more information. If I could find the tak scribings, I might be able to explain what happened.

l raced down the stairs to the ground floor and found nobody there. Velma left me and Lunar to man the Tomes, and Lunar had left me with any tuition jobs for the day so she could handle the ground floor. It was a large room slightly smaller than the study. The difference in space worked as two rooms attached to the ground floor: one for me and Lunar; one for Velma.

There were rows of books ordered in random aisles, leaving odd spacing between shelves like a misshapen maze.

The floor was empty. I wouldn’t put it beyond lunar to have somehow mastered an ashen fake of Gyr’s Eye to let her spend less time doing her work. Honestly, knowing Lunar she could have somehow figured out the real deal. She was resourceful. She knew things she shouldn’t.

I used to think it was the books. When we got here neither of us where anything special, Velma probably chose us because she’d heard of some of our exploits during the orphanage- likely as rants from Vam.

We’d scheme. Me, her and Jusuf. A trio none less perfect than the three swords of Hanon. Jusuf would always lead, we’d never agree on that, he’d just always be moving before the plan was even settled. And she’d improvise.

Men are no mightier than mice when it comes to forcing a future; there’d always be an unforeseen obstacle to overcome. And she would figure out how: If we were to raid a stall in the Village Centre, she’d disguise as an ember; If we stole extra dinner from Vam, she’d be the one buying us time when his lackeys heard something.

Today I had no team though, but I still had an objective. Curiosity guides us forward, and I’d be damned before I forsook mine. It involved committing a grave sin: raiding Velma’s desk.

The room really had two sets of mazes, split by a path leading from the entrance to her desk. coming from the staircase I had to weave through one, knocking over a book on my way. I’d probably have to pick that up later.

Her station was meticulous. She had papers ordered by dates piled in the corner, inks grouped by thickness at the back edge, and beads and charms ordered by colors lined up to the side. The beads looked too unremarkable. They had a still dullness too grey for a frame of life to capture. I felt a need to reach for them. Inspect them. But that would do no good. No point in adding in more risk.

I came for her papers. The tak scribings. The ones her informants gave her. Velma had set up a network of them, people that would give her whispers and tales from the city, and she’d weave their lines into a cohesive piece.

This was the Tak. Her Tak. She’d set it up a short while after me and Lunar arrived. She taught us to read and write to make more copies with minimal man power and to distribute her work. She taught us common tongues and hands to script for a wider audience. All the care she gave for us funneled back into the Tak. It’s how she could talk at equals with the embers of the village. That and owning the tomes made her more valuable than a fair few embers.

I’d long ago realized her notes were filed away somewhere by her desk.

#####

Once an informant came at dawn, Lunar woke me up to watch. I had no idea how many times she may have eavesdropped

“I don’t want to follow you anywhere before the sun has even rose, I don’t think anyone should trust you in the day, let alone into the dark!” in my mind I was shouting at her but given the time she woke me, it was probably more like angry mumbling.

My attempts at aggression where missed or ignored, smiling a haunting smile for the time of day, Lunar replied “Firstly, the darkness changes nothing you tiddleneck. Secondly, if you can’t trust your own family, then who? Follow me before I get rid of the little balls you have left.”

I, of course-knowing her threats deadly- acquiesced.

We snuck into the main room from our shared bedroom. There were no lamps lit in either. We had to creak our bedroom door open long enough to brew minty starmyre tea, just to dampen the noise.

When navigating the room, the maze structure came to our aid, obscuring vision in any particular direction. Then Lunar motioned for us to hold our breaths to mask our sound. We were both used to it. At the orphanage we’d compete endlessly.

We'd race lungless, or just see who could hold their breath the longest. Jusuf usually won, but we all became really good at it. It’d helped sometimes in the past to stay silent in manhunt games or get run loose in escapes. Now we’d enact it to catch... something.

Lunar took a measured breath, coupled her palms in front of her, and then started making odd shapes with them. There was something familiar about the hand signs but I wasn’t quite sure what. I watched her confused. A pressure started to build. I looked to Lunar panicked but she had her eyes closed in focus, then with Lunar’s soft exhale my ears popped.

A greater silence stormed them. It felt like emptiness suddenly whirled into my canals. The silence was soon displaced by the clattering of my clothes and faint breathing which I attributed to Lunar until I realised, she’d held her breath again and was motioning me to do the same. Jarring shuffling of feet joined the sound scape and I began to realise we were not really listening to what was going on near us, but a bit further off. I could hear it with the clarity of someone’s lips to my ears. One, then shortly after, two sets of feet shuffled. And then once more there was just distant breathing, but this time a duet.

Lunar led the way to a spot just close enough to see, but hard to be seen from. Velma stood tall next a man dressed in dark garbs and donning a matching mask. I’d seen Temos’s designs in his tailorshop one of the few times me, Ju and Lunar snuck into the embers region of village. It was hard to make out details in the dark, but the man looked to be wearing finery for an affluent Ashen or a lesser Embers training clothe. A transfer seemed to be taking place. She paid them gold. I’d only ever seen copper before so when she took it out of her satchel to hand it over I almost gasped, Lunar’s hand pre-emptively clogging my mouth in time to stop the sound. Velma performed a few hand gestures, much like Lunar’s, and then began to scribe without the informant speaking. When her pen stilled the informant just left, no words exchanged.

From that day, I became much more sceptical of Velma. And unnerved by Lunar.

“What was all of that last night?” I tried asking her the morning after, I found her at the largest window in the upper tomes, the sun bathing her in pure white. She’d do this every cycle, always making sure she done it during suns to get the most light before it started setting post midday. Merriam and Deante showed up in the pile of books to her left, but there were some weird other inclusions. There were a lot of books about different tribes and cultures, the kind that you’d read and remind yourself the world was more than the thousand walls length of Tomav. But she had ripped pages from them, leaving the pile of books to look more like a collage of books.

The books felt like a rift between us, showing the gap in our experiences, all at her control. It made me worry. Not for myself but for her.

She finally looked at me. Probably having finished a chapter in the time I wasted staring at her.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked.

I faltered then quickly responded, “what? How could I, did you se-hear whatever, what you... what happened last night?”

Lunar knew how much I hated not knowing things. I think for a moment she showed some sympathy, but it was quickly hidden, “Dreams are pretty cool, but if those are all you wanna talk about, then you’re wasting my time timbleneck.” she said.

I eyed her aggressively, trying to see what was going, but she ignored me, turning back to her note-taking.

I was about to start talking again knowing all too well I couldn’t make Lunar do syon all without her already wanting to do it.

After some thought, I realised I could maybe make her want to respond. If I could do something that perplexed her as much as she did to me, she’d all but need to talk to me. In that regard we where similar.

I looked towards Lunar’s eyes, although they weren’t giving me any attention that was fine, I just needed to know there was a clear path between us.

I clasped my hands, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to heavy my lungs as much as possible. I made sure the motions were long and slick like the theatrics of the circusfolk. And in best sync I could I replayed Lunar’s motions from the night before, trying to copy her frame by frame, chanting as though I knew what I was saying. Although I thought my hand signs fairly accurate, I knew the words’ sounds were completely off. Maybe craft ran on intent?

And then… nothing happened. When I opened my eyes, I saw Lunar staring at me. I did not even hear Lunar giggle which I’d scoped as the worst scenario.

She kept silence between us, seemingly inspecting me, I never felt awkward in front of Lunar, but I was beginning to at least start to feel discomfort. “You shouldn’t be able to remember the movements.” She said. The words sounded flat and throwaway, but for Lunar this must have been genuine shock.

As an afterthought she said, “Just learn what you can.”

She meant to continue just reading and tutoring in the tomes, minding my own business. Or maybe she meant to figure it all out by myself. Remember the night. Remember what I can and figure out the rest.

Lunar said nothing past that, reaching to start looking at a new scroll, leaving my thoughts to go wild.

Her cryptic behaviour was unnerving. But I never doubted her. We tend to give more slack for those that matter more to us. And Velma, Lunar, and Jusuf are about all that mattered to me. Whatever she was hiding, it meant I probably shouldn’t know.

What they done looped in my mind. The hand signs, the scribing, the sound. None of that was normal, beyond even pyre. I did not know much but I knew it should not be like that. It might have been higherCraft I’d heard it mentioned, the kind Templars, Politika and Shaman used. But how would they have learned it? And did Velma teach Lunar or…?

Lunar had never been to the institute. I’d know. She just turned sixteen anyway, and Velma wouldn’t be trapped in a village catering to lesser nobles if she had.

I’d figure it all out. Heliar, Velma and even Lunar. Lunar may have been our ace, and now a mysterious one at that, but if a plan ever just worked, it was mine. I just needed to know enough. And I had a feeling Velma’s desk had some answers.