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Lunchtime, Agott had decided, was the best time to go to the library. Not the Library library, obviously, but the junior apprentice library four levels down from the cafeteria. There was a back stairway that hardly anyone ever used, and she could slip down there while everyone clattered up the main staircase towards the cafeteria for lunch. It was the perfect time to study. No distractions, no one whispering behind book cases about her, no one around at all except a few patient old witches who barely seemed to register her presence while they reshelved books and redrew the seals meant to protect the books from water and poorly drawn pyreball spells.
She settled into her favorite alcove—it was partially hidden behind a shelf that gave her a good view of the rest of the library while making it hard for anyone to see her—with a stack of paper and a book of levitation magic. Her fingers had twitched towards one of her favorite collections of decorative sigils, but she'd stopped herself. She needed to focus on practical magic. She was just getting interested in the Sylph Shoes designs when she heard two adults enter the library.
She wasn't eavesdropping. But they were talking loudly enough that she couldn't not hear them.
"I just never thought of you as someone who wanted to teach, Qifrey."
"No?"
"No! Come on, you can't be surprised by that, can you?"
"Why wouldn't I want to teach, Alaira?"
"You are one of the grumpiest people I know," Alaira said. "And you have no respect for education, you were always convincing Olruggio to skip school and go wander around in the woods with you."
"Maybe I want to teach because I'm aware of how boring the standard witch education is," Qifrey said. He sounded amused.
"Does Olruggio know about this?"
"Of course he knows, Beldaruit just approved him to be my Watchful Eye."
"Ah so that's the benefit of being the apprentice of one of the Wise Ones," Alaira said, still teasing. Agott had been trying not to listen up until this point, had still been listening against her will, but now she looked up, trying to get a glimpse of them between the shelves. "Oh, don't make that face. Is Beldaruit is letting anyone else have their best friend be their Watchful Eye?"
"No," Qifrey said. Alaira laughed.
Agott could see them now, standing near the pinboard in the middle of the library. It looked like Qifrey was fastening something to it. They both wore white robes, but Alaira had a black hood and a swoosh of red hair underneath her cap, while Qifrey's hair was startlingly white.
"It is a cute poster, I'll give you that," Alaira said.
Qifrey hummed in agreement. "Olly made it."
"I get that you both hated it here, but do you really think kids are going to want to live way out in the middle of nowhere like you do? Most witches in the Great Hall grew up here, Qifrey. Their friends and family are here. They'll miss it if they leave."
"Not all of them," Qifrey said, so quiet Agott could barely hear it. "And it's not like our atelier isn't nice, Alaira. We're only a short flight from Kahln, there's space for every student to have their own room, and it's remote enough that they can practice outside if they like. You should come visit sometime—do you like zwirlchini?"
"I mean, I don't dislike it? Sort of a middle of the pack vegetable for me." They were walking towards the exit, voices fading as continued their conversation.
"Good enough, we started a vegetable garden and we're drowning in zwirlchini. Olly and I will show you some recipes, and then you can take some home."
"Do I have a choice?"
"Nope."
Agott waited for a few minutes after they left, then carefully emerged from her alcove. Quietly, she made her way over to the pinboard to look at Qifrey's poster.
It was kind of weird. Technically, apprentices chose their masters. But that wasn't really how things were done. Most apprentices chose whichever master their parents wanted them to learn under. If a master advertised their school, it was to adults, so that parents would send their kids there. Agott had never heard of a master putting up posters in the junior apprentice library. But Qifrey seemed very new to this.
The poster had a sketch of a stone house on a steep hillside, under a broad expanse of stars. There were a few relevant details, like his name, information about where his atelier was, the types of magic he could teach. To apply, you could send a letter through the Great Hall's mail exchange or—and Agott re-read this sentence to make sure she hadn't gotten something confused— you could "just find me and ask!" Next to that there was a little drawing, simplified but still recognizable as the witch Agott had seen through the bookshelves.
And he'd been apprentice to Beldaruit, the Sage of the Wise? That made no sense. Witches should be breaking down his door to put their children in his atelier, he shouldn't be advertising here.
It looked quiet, Agott thought. Peaceful. Without any other students to pull you away from your studies, or talk about you behind your back, or—or clatter loudly back down the stairs when the lunch rush was over, like they were all doing right now. She ran back to her alcove and grabbed her stack of paper, fleeing up the back staircase before anyone could recognize her.
That afternoon, she went to the Hall of Records. Most people didn't know about it, or thought the Hall of Records was the most boring place in the Great Hall. But you could find out a lot of stuff there, if you knew how to look.
Agott knew how to look.
Unfortunately, the front desk was very tall, so it took a few tries to catch the attention of the witch minding it.
"Oh hello there!" she said at last, peering down at Agott from over the desk, face creasing into a smile. "Are you lost, honey?"
"No," Agott said. "I would like to look at the fifth test records from the past two years, please." Mister Qifrey must have passed it recently, if his friend was still surprised by his decision to start teaching.
The woman blinked at her. Agott felt the urge to flee, but she held her ground.
"May I ask why?" The witch asked at last. "You look a bit young for that one, my dear. Are you sure you don't mean the first test?"
"No! I've passed the first test," Agott said. "I'm, um, researching a potential teacher?" It felt pathetic to say out loud. No one researched teachers, not unless you were really desperate. Even if you weren't from Arklaum house, it was something your parents worked out for you, if they cared at all. And if you were from Arklaum house, then—well it just wasn't done. But Agott needed a master in order to take the rest of the tests. There was no other way around it.
"Oh!" The witch beamed. "You know, I am always saying more young witches should use our records for exactly that. So many apprentices are blindsided by the fact that their master barely made it through the teaching examination, when the information was publically available to them the whole time! You, my dear, have the makings of an excellent witch."
It was good that she immediately turned and led Agott back to the correct Records room, because Agott didn't know how to respond to that at all.
Master Qifrey, who was in fact listed as an apprentice to the Sage of the Wise Beldaruit, had passed the fifth exam two months ago. With flying colors, apparently, although the details were vague. They always were, to prevent students from learning too much about them in advance.
The entry also listed the years he had passed his other tests, but someone must have written a date wrong. There were several years between the fourth and fifth test, which wasn't unusual, but there was no way the dates for the first three tests were that close together. Agott wasn't good at figuring out adults' ages—maybe he became an apprentice very late? Had he been informally studying magic before then?
She wrote down the dates and returned to the front desk. This time, the witch put her in a room and brought the books to her. The dates weren't wrong. He'd passed the second test six months after the first, giving him the ability to draw magic in front of outsiders. Then, he'd passed the third test only ten months later. For that one, his entry was next to one for a boy named Olruggio, the name Alaira had mentioned. The name looked familiar written down, but Agott couldn't remember where she had seen it before.
Master Qifrey's age wasn't written down in any of the entries, but Olruggio's was, and if they were best friends they were probably the same age. Olruggio had passed the third test at thirteen. No one did that without a reason. The first test was easy, and Agott hadn't been able to find out much about the second, but the third one was dangerous. Not just the test itself, but the freedom that came with passing it—once you passed the third test you were free to travel as you pleased and, more importantly, complete the Librarian's Trial. Most masters wouldn't even let their apprentices take the third test until they were well past thirteen.
She went back out to the front desk and asked if there were records for witches who had challenged the Tower of Tomes.
"No, those would only be in the tower itself," the witch at the front desk said.
"Okay," Agott said. "Thank you for your help."
"Any time, dear," the witch said.
She went back to her room, got ready for bed, and tried to write a letter that she could send through the mail service, like Master Qifrey had suggested on his poster. She wrote six drafts, one after the other, discarding them one after the other as too desperate, too vague, overly formal, not formal enough, rude, and desperate again. She thought about hiding under the covers of her bed and never coming out again. They'd notice eventually, wouldn't they?
Instead, she swapped out her ink and drew one of her favorite seals, a lantern spell modified with a decorative rabbit sigil. It was easy to lose herself in magic like this. She'd drawn it so many times that it felt like she was standing outside of herself, watching her hands do the work. She closed the circle and a luminous rabbit appeared in the middle of the paper, standing on its hind legs and sniffing its surroundings before hopping along her desk.
Maybe Master Qifrey wanted students who were bold enough to ask him in person. Maybe including two options on the flyer had been a sort of test, and Agott was going about it the wrong way. To prove her worth, she needed to be able to find him and ask him in person.
She would do that then. Decisively, Agott crumpled up the letters and threw them into the bin. She turned off the lamp, crawled into bed, and watched the rabbit hop around her desk until it faded away into the darkness.
The next morning, on her way to the library again, she ran right into him as he stepped out of a stationer's shop. One moment she had been thinking hard about what she would say when she tracked him down, and the next she had run face first into a wall of smoke-colored robes.
"Oh dear! I'm so sorry," he said. "Are you alright?"
Agott stared up at him. She hadn't come up with anything to say yet. She wasn't ready.
His expression of polite concern deepened into actual concern, and he bent down to look at her more closely. "Are you alright?" he repeated.
"Yes!" Agott said, finding her voice all at once and somewhat louder than she'd expected. Master Qifrey looked a little taken aback. "Thank you for your concern," she said, remembering her manners. "And I'm sorry. For running into you."
"Oh, no need to worry," he said. "I'm quite alright." He beamed at her, one pale blue eye twinkling behind his glasses. She realized, belatedly, that the right lens of those glasses was black, and the eye itself was obscured by his hair. It had been like that in the drawing, too, but she'd thought it was a mistake. How did he see through an opaque lens?
He looked like he was waiting for her to say something. "I was going to the library," she said, nonsensically. Why would he care about that? What was she doing? She should just ask to join his atelier, she'd already made the decision, why was she being so stupid about it?
"Ah, well, in that case I won't keep you," he said, standing back up.
Agott kept walking, stiffly aware of his eyes on her back as she went. Her one and only chance at a first impression and she'd completely blown it.
Her day went from bad to worse when she heard the rattle of footsteps and a familiar, unpleasant voice behind her.
"Why were you talking to that witch?"
"Go away, Loroga," Agott said, whirling on him. "It's none of your business who I talk to."
The boy rolled his eyes at her. "I've heard of him, you know. He's starting an atelier out in the middle of nowhere, but he can't seem to find any students who want to learn from him. Which is only to be expected, I guess—"
"He only passed the fifth test two months ago," Agott said. "It wouldn't make sense for him to have students yet."
"How do you know that?"
"I looked it up," Agott said, "In the Hall of—" She clamped her mouth shut when she saw Loroga's delighted face. She'd fallen right into that one.
"No way," he breathed. "You're planning to ask him to be your master."
"That's none of your business," she said. Her ears burned with embarrassment.
"You know he's practically blind?" Loroga asked.
"What? No he's not," Agott retorted. His glasses were odd, sure, but despite that friendly expression his left eye had been sharp as a knife.
"You didn't see? Maybe you're the blind one." He waited, clearly wanting her to ask him what he meant, but Agott just glared at him. He sighed. "He's missing his whole eye on the right side, under those glasses. He lost it when he was a kid or something. That's probably why no one wants to learn from him, who would want to learn from a witch with one eye?"
Several things clicked into place in Agott's mind. It explained the weirdness—why adults weren't clamoring to get their children into his atelier and why he wanted to set it up so far from the Great Hall, where everyone loved to talk about you behind your back. But also—
"He must be an incredible witch," Agott said, forgetting for a moment who she was talking to and how little she wanted to talk to him.
"What?"
"You're such an idiot, Loroga," she said. "Passing all the tests with only one eye means he probably had to be twice as good as everyone else. And he was an apprentice to the Wise in Education."
"But—"
"Don't ever talk to me again," Agott said. "I'm busy." She strode off, Loroga sputtering behind her.
She was going to find Master Qifrey again, and next time she would know exactly what to say. She would become his first apprentice, and she would become such an incredible, original, talented witch that they would beg her to come back to Arklaum House.
Of course, now that she was looking for him, she couldn't find him.
After seeing him twice in two days, Agott had foolishly thought it would be easy to find him again. The white robes and white hair should have made him easy to spot in a crowd, and she'd thought carefully about the best places to look for him. One of the only things she knew about her future master was that he did not live in the Great Hall, which ruled out several of the places she'd normally look for someone, like the cafeteria at meal times or the central square after working hours were over. She'd settled on watching the Winddowway Parlor and the Mail Room, which fortunately both had entrances on the same plaza. She'd found a second-floor balcony where no one would bother her, with a good view of both entrances.
She'd felt very clever. After two days, she was doubting herself. If this was a test, then she was failing it.
If Agott had just sent him one of her terrible drafts of a letter, this probably would have been a lot easier. But she was going to do this right. She had a plan now. She would walk up to him, bow, and say: "Hello, Master Qifrey. My name is Agott of House Arklaum. I saw your poster and I would like to be your apprentice. I've already passed the first test. Please allow me to demonstrate my skills." Then she would draw a pyreball with wind sigils to create a fountain of flame, which was practical and beautiful, followed by her luminous rabbit. The rabbit wasn't practical, but it was the most advanced spell she could draw from memory that wasn't one of the ones she'd used for her Arklaum House debut, which—well, she didn't want to draw those spells again. This was going to be a fresh start.
On the third day, returning to her post after buying a roll for lunch, she saw it—a white cap with a long black ribbon floating through the crowd. It was him! She darted forward, ignoring the startled cries of the witches who weren't expecting her to jump through their paths, and got ten paces behind him before realizing that she was out of breath and, more importantly, still eating her lunch. That wouldn't do at all. She'd already botched her first impression. The second needed to be perfect.
She slowed, trailing behind him. The white cloak was easy to follow, at least. So many witches wore all black that once, when she was very young, Agott had ended up following the wrong witch around the market for a whole hour before realizing they were not her mother.
She caught her breath, dusted a few crumbs off the front of her dress, and was trying to figure out how to catch Master Qifrey's attention when she realized he was looking for someone in the crowd. A few moments later another witch, with black hair, wearing black robes with dark blue trim, appeared and gave him a friendly greeting. They both stepped into a tea shop and disappeared from view.
She could have waited for them to come back outside. That probably would have been the more polite thing to do. But Agott had waited three days already, and she wasn't going to let Master Qifrey out of her sight again without asking to join his atelier.
She breezed in through the door, trying to look more confident than she felt, and ignored the curious gaze of the witch in charge of seating customers. It was better not to give them the opportunity to question her. She saw Master Qifrey and the other witch at a small table on the other side of the room, receiving steaming cups of tea from a server. She approached, clenching her hands into fists so that they wouldn't betray her by shaking.
The black-haired witch noticed her first. Between sips of his tea, he said, "Qifrey, have you been feuding with the children of the Great Hall? Offended any of them lately?"
"…No?" Master Qifrey said.
"Well, there's a child standing on your right who looks like she wants to fight you."
Agott's face burned, and as Master Qifrey turned to face her she tried very hard to unclench her fists and relax her shoulders.
"Oh, hello again!" Master Qifrey said. "I remember you from the other day."
She had been hoping he wouldn't remember her, but of course he did.
"So you have been feuding with children, then," the other witch said.
"Yes, I suppose we had a bit of a run-in at the magic stationers." Master Qifrey was smiling at Agott like she was in on a joke. He didn't seem mad about it, at least. But this wasn't going according to plan at all.
"Hello," Agott said. Wait, that was out of order. She bowed, stiffly. When she looked up both adults had politely inclined their heads toward her. "Hello," she said, again, and winced at her own awkwardness.
"Hello," Master Qifrey said again, with a placid smile.
The other witch looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Hello," he said as well.
"My name is Agott. Of—of House Arklaum."
The other witch whistled, but Master Qifrey said "Olly," in a way that sounded like a warning and nodded at her to continue. So this was Olruggio, who had also passed all of his tests impressively young and whose name felt familiar in a way she couldn't quite place. Her face got even warmer than it already was.
"I saw you put up a poster," she said. Wait, he was going to think she was spying on him. "In the library, um, and I looked at the—the poster. And it said to come find you, if—um." Oh, this was going so wrong. She was making a fool of herself, she should just leave now and spare everyone the misery of—
"Oh you want to be an apprentice?" Master Qifrey asked. Even through the fog of her nerves, Agott saw the massive smile that broke out across his face, like sunshine after a storm. Mister Olruggio gave her an appraising look.
"Yes," Agott said. "I've already passed the first test. Please allow—"
"That's wonderful. When would you like to start?"
Agott froze in the middle of reaching for her palm quire, her brain screeching to a halt.
"…Start?" she asked.
"Yes," Master Qifrey said. He tapped a finger against his chin, thoughtful. "I suppose you probably have parents? I'll have to meet with them, of course."
"You—just like that?" Agott asked. "I can just start?"
"Yes?" Master Qifrey looked confused.
"There's not a test?"
"I thought you said that you'd already passed the first test."
"I did, but—" Agott sputtered. Babies could pass the first test. "But you don't know if I'm any good!"
"Ah," Master Qifrey said, mildly. "I'm fairly certain the entire point is for you to learn, yes? I would be a poor teacher if I only accepted students who were already very capable. No, I'm interested in students who are eager to learn and willing to work hard. If you have those qualities, then becoming 'good' is merely a matter of application."
Agott stared at him. That didn't—that didn't make any sense. Right? Everyone knew that if you wanted to get ahead, you needed talent. Hard work just built on what was already there. If Master Qifrey didn't believe that, what did it mean? Would he just accept anyone? That wasn't how things were done. That wasn't how anything had ever been done her entire life.
"A respectable pedagogical approach," Mister Olruggio said. "However, Miss Agott of House Arklaum, if you've been practicing a spell to show him, then I'm sure my friend Qifrey here would love to see it."
"Oh!" Master Qifrey said. "Right, yes, go ahead, Agott. I'd be delighted to see any spells that you have been working on."
Agott was grateful for the opportunity to return to her plan. She mentally shelved Master Qifrey's opinions on talent and looked up at the dark-paneled wood ceiling. Then she looked around at the patrons. It was a little cramped. Her swirling flame spell might not be well received here.
"I have two spells, actually," she said. "To demonstrate my skill. The first one needs more room, I think?"
"That's always a good sign," Mister Olruggio said.
"Why don't you show us the second, then," Master Qifrey said. "And once my friend has finished his tea, we'll go outside to see the first one."
"Okay," Agott said. This might be a better order anyways. Nothing had gone to plan so far, but the luminous rabbit seal always made her feel better, and she could practically draw it in her sleep.
She pulled out her palm quire and hesitated, pen hovering over the paper. She took a deep breath in, then out, and shut out everything else. Then she drew. Her hand was sweaty where she held her pen, and it wasn't quite as balanced as it would have been at her desk, but she still felt a wave of relief when she closed the seal and her glowing rabbit sprang into existence.
The relief turned right back into nerves when she saw how closely the two adult witches were watching her.
"What exquisite detail!" Master Qifrey said, after a long, heart-stopping moment. "I was expecting a primer spell, but this is a lovely surprise. Well designed and very well drawn, I can see the work you've put into it." He turned to Mister Olruggio. "And what is your judgement, oh Olruggio of the Torch?"
Agott's heart jolted in her chest. So that's where she had heard the name before. He was famous for his contraptions, and his specialty was fire and light magic. She braced herself for what he had to say, he'd probably noticed that it wasn't entirely balanced—
"Very nice," Mister Olruggio (of the Torch!!) said. "That's Asensen's bubble lamp seal, right? And you've modified the shape with a rabbit sigil?"
"Y—yes!" Agott said. "The rabbit sigil comes from Sibley's Guide to Animal Sigils. And, um, I had to reduce the levitation signs from the original seal, because the rabbit starts to float away otherwise and it looks silly." She clamped her mouth shut. He probably didn't need to know all that. He could probably tell just by looking.
"That's a good solution," Mister Olruggio said, with a nod. "Most people would try to draw the rabbit sigil larger to match the sphere from the original spell, but that throws off the movement sigils and the whole thing gets kind of syrupy. You've kept a nice amount of movement. Very lively." He nodded at her rabbit, which twitched its nose at them and fizzled out of existence. For a moment, Agott had the strange notion that it hadn't disappeared, but had leapt into her chest, bouyant and glowing with gentle warmth.
"Let's move outside to see the second spell," Master Qifrey said. Mister Olruggio drained the rest of his tea, left a few coins on the table, and they moved outside to the courtyard. It was mostly empty at this time of day. Agott steeled herself and drew her fountain of flame, holding her palm quire very flat and at arm's length before closing the circle. It gave off a satisfying whoosh as the flame shot up from her quire, and she felt the heat rush over her until the flames went out a few seconds later.
"Fire and light," Master Qifrey said. "Maybe she should be your student, Olly."
"Hah!" Mister Olruggio said. "Great work, kid. Nice combo of two primer spells. Although you know, if you wanted a little more volume, you could always put a little spin on it by drawing those wind signs at an angle—" He stopped mid-sentence, looking at the opposite wall of the courtyard like he was seeing something else entirely. When he spoke again he sounded like he was talking to himself. "Wait. That might actually—" He produced a notebook from the folds of his cloak and started sketching something in it.
"It's very good, Agott," Master Qifrey said, ignoring Mister Olruggio's abrupt change of focus. He crouched down so that Agott didn't have to look up at him anymore. "I will be delighted to take you on as my apprentice. I can see that you've worked very hard to develop your skills already. It will be an honor to help you develop them further." He smiled at her, and Agott felt tears prick into the corners of her eyes.
She made a hasty bow to hide her face. "Thank you for this opportunity, Master Qifrey," she said. "And you as well, Master Olruggio."
Master Olruggio jumped, and looked up from his notebook like he had just remembered she was there. "Nope," he said. "Don't call me master, I'm not a master, I have no interest in teaching, I haven't even taken the fifth test. Just Olruggio is fine."
"Um, okay—" Agott found that she couldn't call an adult by just their name, not to their face. "—Mister Olruggio."
"Close enough," he said, sounding resigned. "Qifrey, this is going to make me feel so old." Master Qifrey just laughed.
It was a whole week before she could actually move to Master Qifrey's atelier out on the downs. There was paperwork, apparently, and a meeting between Master Qifrey and her mother that needed to be scheduled before she could officially join his atelier. She had to get measured for her new apprentice uniform, which was very different from the clothes she'd always worn before. It was less adorned, more practical, but in a comfortable way instead of a boring way. Master Qifrey had made a point of telling her that if there was something she didn't like about it, then all she had to do was ask and he would get the tailors to change it.
Agott didn't tell him that when she'd put on the dress and buttoned the warm cloak over it she had looked up to see a stranger in the mirror. The stranger was older than her, and braver. She wasn't a child who clammed up around adults, or needed to hide from other students in the library. She was strong. It felt good to wear her clothes, as though by wearing them Agott could pretend to be her, and if she pretended long enough then she would eventually become her.
When the day finally came for her to leave, they took a winddowway to Master Qifrey's atelier. Agott didn't know why she'd been expecting a longer journey. It felt underwhelming to just step right into her new home from her old one. But as Master Qifrey showed her around the atelier, she couldn't stop noticing how bright it was, and how clean the air felt against her skin. The salt air of the Great Hall was gone, replaced by the delicate scent of hundreds of flowers in the meadows outside. Sunlight poured through the windows and pooled across the floors like nectar from a freshly broken honeytree branch.
A clock mark before dinner time, Master Qifrey left her to unpack her things in the bedroom below her new workroom. It didn't take long. She'd left behind most of her wardrobe—she had the apprentice uniform now—and her favorite books were all ones that belonged to the Great Hall's libraries, not her own. She sat down on the bed to wait a little longer, looking around at the bare walls. It was strange. She'd wanted to come here, but there was a nagging voice in the back of her head, wondering if this had all been a terrible mistake. It was so different here than what she was used to. And Master Qifrey was an apprentice of the Sage of Education, who had done well in all of his tests, but she was still choosing to be his first apprentice, very far away from everyone she had ever known.
She closed her eyes and listened for the crashing of waves against stone, but all she could hear was the soft sigh of the wind across the downs.
She let her fear wash over her for a moment before picking it up and setting it aside. It was different here, but that was a good thing, she decided. It was also good to be far from everyone she'd ever known. It meant that she could be different, too.