Chapter Text
“When I was first learning magic, before I was too confident in my skills with fire, that is… I used to play around with sigils, just to see what happens. Technically, it’s not ‘the right way’ to learn it anymore, but they’ve changed the textbooks so much since I was a kid.
“As you know, all spells are made of the same building blocks. So any signs in the outer ring should have the same basic effect no matter the element in the middle. Doesn’t matter if it’s fire, light, or water, if you tell it to shoot out in a certain direction, it’ll go.”
Coco nodded. “That makes sense.”
“So if you’re trying a new combination of sigils, and you have no clue if they’ll play nicely together, and you tend to work with a rather dangerous element…” he looked at her expectantly.
“…you just replace the central glyph to see if the spell is viable without burning down your house?”
“Exactly! Nowadays, the books just throw a chart of combinations at you and expect you to memorize it. But figuring it out yourself is always more satisfying.”
“But will it really work on this type of glyph? I mean, the spell is rare enough as it is… can we think of memories as something…physical? Like water?”
Olruggio smiled. “That’s why we test, and take it in small steps. It’s just not worth it to think too far ahead to step ten if you have no clue if step three will even work.”
“So, step two…” Coco sighed. She smoothed out the page that held her scribbled notes. A few sections were crossed out, and she pointed at the incomplete spell near the bottom of the page. “This is what I had in mind so far. Do you think it would work?”
His eyes scanned the spell, and he hummed. “This part looks like one of mine.” Coco’s back straightened. “Did you take inspiration?”
Coco spluttered, “N-no, I swear! I was just thinking about what sigils would work, is all!”
Olruggio laughed, leaning out to clap her on the shoulder. “I’m just teasing ya. Great minds think alike.” His eyes moved out to the next ring. “And the repetition spell to keep it in place. Yeah, that looks like it would work.”
He tapped his chin in thought. “If that doesn’t work, maybe we can see if something like the vapor bubble spell would. It draws the water out of the air to collect in one space, maybe it could do the same for memories? Ah, scratch that. It might just suck in the memories of everyone in the room.”
They certainly didn’t want that.
Coco twirled her pen. “I guess I’ll give that a try. The first one. Maybe I can use the light glyph to test it? That’s also, uh, intangible.”
He slid a fresh sheet of paper across the desk. “Sounds good, I’ll take a peek at your notes and see if I can come up with the return.”
Relief prickled through her. She had steeled herself to figure out the whole thing on her own, but Coco was so happy that she had an actual witch here for the hard parts.
—
They didn’t have to do much else to prepare the room, given that the curtains were already drawn and the door closed. They made sure some candles were lit at varying distances from the desk.
Coco breathed out as she completed the circle for the test spell. In a blink, the light from the candles coalesced into a bright blob sitting above the paper.
Olruggio leaned over, harsh light washing out his face. He poked the spell with a finger. He yelped, shaking out his hand. “Yep. That’s light.”
“Oh really? I couldn’t tell.”
“You should spend less time with Agott. She’s starting to rub off on you.”
He expected Coco to splutter again, but she just looked down and blushed. Hooooo boy. Not looking forward to that talk, later.
Turning back to the spell, he said “It’s solid.” Olruggio poked the blob again, letting out a sharp exhale at the heat. “Yep. Solid. Well, more a gummy texture? But it’s staying together, at least. You did good designing the spell.”
Coco’s eyes kept darting back and forth, unable to look at the glow for too long. “Mm. I’m more concerned at how the second half will work.”
“Let’s see.” Olruggio broke the circle, and rather unceremoniously, the light winked back to its respective candles.
Oh. Easy enough. Coco gave the section on her page a checkmark.
“So this method works, hm..” Olruggio hummed. “You can try another one. I’ll start planning a contraption that can easily turn it off.” His fingers moved on their own, already plotting the moving parts. A lever you push with your thumb that pushes a piece that completes the circle. A bar locks it in place. With another button you could free the lever and disable the spell. Eh, that’s simple enough to make a rough prototype tonight.
While he sat muttering to himself, Coco flipped back a few pages in her notebook. “How does the memory spell the Knights Moralis use work? I’ve heard that they can remove just the memories of the past day, but also your entire memory of magic? Do they have two different spells? Also, is the memory spell part of the pennant or is it its own thing?”
Ah, Coco was such an engaged student.
“Okay. Give me a second.” Qifrey had seemingly unlimited patience, able to adapt to each girl’s learning style, but Olruggio had never had that type of training. He rubbed his forehead. “As far as I’m aware, it’s the same spell. The only difference is how long they wield it for. The longer they hold it, the more memory is lost.”
Coco nodded as if he had confirmed her theory. “Alright. So if we wanted to test the spell, we should start with the normal memory erasure spell.”
Right. That reminded Olruggio of the main problem with this whole endeavor. Conceptually, no one had dared to mess with memory spells. Well, witches on their side, at least. He hadn’t even known there was an alternate version to the spell, one so powerful it could erase your entire life’s worth of memories. If that exists, who’s to say there aren’t even more variations?
“Did you have anything in mind for the next step of testing?” Olruggio asked.
Coco winced. “Well… Master Qifrey mentioned that it’s way more common for animals to be infected than humans. So we could always try and find an affected animal? But I guess first we’d have to figure out how to tell if they actually lost their memories or got them back. It’s not like they could tell us.”
Olruggio’s stomach turned at the thought of turning to animals to test their newest creation. How far was he willing to go to keep Qifrey safely in his life? Would he think less of him, knowing what he’s done to craft this spell?
Despite his selfish desires, he has to remind himself that this isn’t just about Qifrey. Though he’d be their first true subject, there was at least one other victim in mind. Even if something went wrong with the spell when cast on Qifrey, they had a duty to refine it further until it was successful.
A chill went through him. If something went wrong. There were a great many ways that something could, indeed, go wrong. The worst would, of course, be that Qifrey simply didn’t survive the experiment. Another horrible option would be that they remove his memories, save his life, but cannot return the memories to their host. What would it be like, to have your entire self stripped away?
He imagines spending the rest of his life rebuilding Qifrey’s memory, to give him back what was taken.
Even if the animal testing was successful, he didn’t like the thought of the first use on a human being the man they tried so hard to save. There was only one real option left.
He couldn’t very well volunteer anyone else to have their memory erased, could he? They have only the vaguest idea of how it works. What if, in either of their inexperienced hands, something went wrong? He took a deep breath to swallow down the tears that were beginning to form.
“I know that the animal testing’s our best option. But, if it gets to the point that we need to test it on a person, I want you to use it on me.”
Coco bristled. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I can’t in good conscience do that to you, Coco. I trust your skills enough.” What kind of guardian would he be if he wimped out and ended up getting her hurt?
Moments passed. Coco hung her head. She tried her best to hide her sniffles, she really did, but unfortunately for her, the tear falling down her cheek glinted in the light. Olruggio wiped it with the edge of his sleeve.
“Alright. I’ll take a bit to plan the next phase of testing. Chin up, Coco. You head to bed.” His eyes narrowed. “Actually, did you do your homework yet?”
“Yes.” Coco perked up. “I did it after dinner.”
“Good, good. Go get some sleep.”
Oh, heavens. He really didn’t want to do this, but… what other choice did they have?
—
Finding sick animals was harder than he thought it would be.
Despite the sample size being much smaller than Olruggio would like, the results they had were promising. Upon the removal of memories, the animal went limp, only maintaining its vital functions. Even after the average refractory period for a memory removal, it remained stationary. Maybe it had forgotten how to run? Or, perhaps it was just exhausted. After only a few minutes, the visible Silverwood sprout had withered.
They tested different timings. If they returned the memories too quickly, the sprout would brighten again, new buds bursting open. In these cases, the animal did not survive. The sheer relief of having their memories, their sense of self back, left a sapling standing in its place. After a few failures, they managed to have a successful Silverwood removal every time.
If they waited until the sprout shriveled and fell out on its own, they had a much higher success rate. The actual time varied. Presumably based on the size of the animal, the depth of the infection, and, Olruggio assumes, the inherent will to live.
They also tested how long the memories could survive outside a host. Luckily, once they were condensed into the contraption, it seemed that there was no time limit. They were unable to check if the memories remained accurate, as the creature inevitably escaped soon after, full faculties returned.
Both Olruggio and Coco were happy beyond belief. Not just that the spell was working as intended, but that they had actually managed to improve the quality of life of the test subjects. It made them feel better about their earlier failures. They had taken a long pause after each failure. Coco called it a mourning period.
But, inevitably, they continued. The tests were few and far between, and they used the time between each one to brainstorm how to test the fidelity of the returned memories.
Olruggio had heard of an Outsider scientist who managed to make a dog associate a sound so strongly with food that at the ring of a bell, the dog salivated. Maybe he could apply something like this to the more intelligent animals they found…
—
Many weeks into the second phase of testing, Coco burst through the door to Olruggio’s workshop, chest heaving.
After she had come to live at the atelier, she set about befriending the flock of pigeon-crows that lingered on the edge of the woods. She spent weeks bringing them food and gradually getting closer until they let her come close without scattering. Each bird had a distinct pattern, making it easy to tell them apart. She had secretly formed a favorite, but worked very hard to make sure that they were all treated equally.
On this day, after making sure the garden was watered in the afternoon, Coco brought her usual bowl of grain to the birds’ nesting area. She stopped in her tracks. Her favorite bird, the friendliest, all black with a spill of rainbow down the breast, was gone. Another bird hopped over to greet her in its stead.
Upon closer inspection, this was her favorite! The splash of color on her chest was now pastel, and the rest of her feathers a pearly white. Coco thought back to what had happened to Custas when he awoke from his tree-induced slumber, how his previously dark hair had turned into a shocking white. Could this be…
She took off her cloak and slowly, slowly, crept closer to the pigeon-crow. It peered up at her, head tilted to the side in question.
“Sorry,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.” She leapt, covering the bird entirely. She bundled it up as tightly as she dared, and sprinted back home.
Of course, before she could make a beeline for the workshop, she was met with the second-worst case scenario. Had it been Richeh, maybe even Tetia, she could have brushed past them easily. But Agott stood, blocking the doorway.
She looked down at the wriggling bundle in Coco’s arms. “What have you got there?” Agott asked.
Crap, crap. She had to think quickly. “It’s, uh, a new brushbuddy I found.” Okay, that might work.
Agott’s face brightened. “Really? Let me see it!”
“You can’t!”
Agott raised an eyebrow at her tone.
“It’s… sick,” Coco explained. “I’m taking it to Master Olruggio. To see if we can help it.”
That didn’t quite make sense. Why not just take it to Master Qifrey? Olruggio has been very busy recently, Agott thought. She bit down the question on her tongue. If Coco wants to bother him, that’s her problem. “I see. Good luck, Coco. Let me know when it’s better.”
“Okay got it loved talking with you, bye!” Coco blurted, nearly tripping over the worn threshold as she ran.
She successfully avoided crossing paths with any other housemates and slammed open the doors to Olruggio’s workshop. She stooped, trying to catch her breath.
When Olruggio rushed over to check on her, she wheezed, “pigeon-crow, Silverwood,” and he nodded. This would be potentially their only chance to see if the spell was fully effective in the way that they hoped. The pigeon-crow was of much higher intelligence than other animals. It also had clearly come to see Coco as a friend. If it reacted well to the spell, it would recognize her after it recovered.
Coco placed the bundle gently on the floor as Olruggio grabbed the now-refined contraption from a locked drawer. He kneeled, wincing as he made contact with the stone floor. Coco moved to stand behind him, hovering anxiously.
She wrung her hands. She had never actually used the contraption herself, having let Olruggio do the dirty work for the both of them.
The bird was still squirming, but slower now. No longer feeling hands holding it down, the bird worked its head through the folds of the cloak until the beak poked out. Once its eyes were visible, Olruggio flipped the lever.
It dropped almost immediately.
They waited. Long enough that Olruggio forced Coco to go have dinner. She complained, saying she was too nauseous to eat. He finally convinced her by saying “Me skipping a meal or two will go unnoticed. It’ll be suspicious if you don’t eat. If anything happens, I’ll keep track of it.”
So, begrudgingly, she went.
It would be the atelier’s last normal meal for a while.