Chapter 2 - Belief in Magic

AN: I'M SO SORRY THIS IS TAKING SO LONG! I feel super bad over how long this is taking. I've been sick, my kid's been SUPER sick, and the lack of pressure isn't helping my writing.

It is doing great things for my mental health though.

I hope to be posting 2x a week starting now, while we're all recovering from various illnesses and insults. I want to eventually move back up to 3x to 5x a week, at least for the start. We'll see.

For now, I'm tenatively committing to 2x a week. Which makes me feel super bad - I let the early chapters be short, thinking "yeah I'll just write a ton of them then post all at once, doesn't matter if they're shorter" and now it's like "NOPE haha".

It's weird, it feels like I've forgotten how to write. Not sure if I just became better, if it's the third person, or if I'm just bad. Possible imposter syndrome. It wasn't so bad with BTDEM because 'first project, oh look at how many people like it', but I've got none of that with Song yet.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy!

Entry V – Of the Copying, and the Crack in the Mirror

The Archmage was wise - and cautious. He did not cast us into chaos. He mirrored the world entire - stone for stone, hearth for hearth. Thus did the Twin Realms arise, as reflections in a darkened pool.

But even reflections, perfect-seeming, do warp with time. I have walked halls that once were mine and felt them… strange. Familiar, yet hollow, as if the soul of place were lost in the sundering.

A miscalculation? Mayhap. Or mayhap, some things - memory, meaning, love - cannot be copied by spell or art.

Chronicles of the Sundering: A Personal Record by Mine Own Hand by Archmage Elowen Thorne, Keeper of the Black Flame, Scribe of the Meridian Vaults

Felix tensed up at the robed intruder in his home.

“Look man, I don’t want any trouble.” He said slowly. “I don’t think you’re in the right place.”

He slowly inched his trembling hand towards the knife block - $39.99 for the block, $14.99 for the knife - His life - priceless.

“Oh for the love of magic.” The man complained, then muttered to himself. “I don’t get paid nearly enough to do these trips.”

Muttering to himself was doing him no favors when it came to Felix. The man was acting high, but didn’t have any of the many symptoms. No shakes, no glassy look - just pure insanity and talking to himself.

“Well, why don’t you leave, and go back to your place?” Felix suggested, still trying to resolve things peacefully.

“I fear I may have gotten things off on the wrong foot.” The man said. “I apologize. My name is Paracelsus. I was wearing an enchanted piece of clothing that should have made me appear as a respectable member of society that you would want to talk with, but there was clearly a malfunction along the way. Can we sit down and discuss things like civilized people? The dishrag you’re holding isn’t going to help things.”

Felix glanced at the knife he’d grabbed, only to find he’d grabbed the dishrag instead.

Paracelsus didn’t wait for Felix’s reply, having already seated himself at the table. He glanced over the letters present on the table, and rapped his knuckle on them.

“Discuss things like the letters you’ve just gotten. Is your mother home? The conversation would work better with all the involved parties.”

Felix’s mind was whirling at a million miles an hour. The mysterious man - Paracelsus - was related to the unusual letters. He wanted to know about Felix’s mom, and he thought telling the intruder ‘no, I’m home all alone’ was a terrible idea.

The man was between Felix and the only door, and the police’s response time was measured in days.

At the same time, maybe he’d humor the man and get him out of everyone’s hair before the situation could escalate. He wasn’t curious about being called a wizard - enough people had claimed to have magical powers that were entirely derived from eating mushrooms that Felix had no belief in it.

He pulled a chair out from the small table and sat down, making sure he was out of lunging reach of the larger, stronger man.

“So I’m a wizard?” Felix dodged the question about his mother. “Are you one as well?”

“To answer your questions in order. Yes, and technically yes, although I would consider myself more of an alchemist.” Paracelsus answered.

“An alchemist. You can turn lead into gold then? That’d be quite a trick.” Felix said.

“I can.” Paracelsus answered, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Can I get a demonstration?” Felix asked.

Paracelsus sighed, and Felix wondered what type of bullshit he’d pull out to explain why he couldn’t do it.

“I’ll be happy to give a demonstration, but I must clarify a number of points first.” He said. Felix waited for the absolute mountain of bullshit that was about to torrent out. Keep him happy, keep him talking, and everyone could leave happy. Felix could even have a cool story in the end!

“When Merlin severed the world, he tied time magic to protect the magical community. Any magic we perform is going to get veiled, and replaced with a mundane means of performing the same task. It makes proving the existence of magic to new members of the community quite difficult at times, and I’m sadly not proficient enough at the mental arts to offer the chance to simply implant the belief of magic into your head.”

Felix nodded along, not wanting to poke at the bullshit. Yup, just as he expected.

“As such, I’m going to ask you to write down a few things before I get started. It will help with the demonstration. First, can you get me a few objects that you’d like turned into gold?”

Felix was nodding along until the last sentence, where the man was suddenly offering to turn something into gold for him. That wasn’t an expected part of the speech. Last time he’d talked to a Wiccan, she’d promised she could curse people and turn them into frogs. When he’d pressed her, she said it’d be unethical to do so. When Felix had offered to get turned into a frog himself - full consent, no ethical concerns - she’d changed the topic of conversation in a huff.

Some witch.

Felix figured the man was simply going to run off with whatever he presented, but it wasn’t like lead was expensive. If he’d been asking to turn copper into gold, that would’ve been a clear indication of what was going to happen, but lead? There was no resale value.

“I don’t know if I have any lead.” Felix said. Paracelsus waved the concern off.

“Oh, only an amateur needs it to be lead in the first place. Literally the first alchemy lesson. Great demonstration, gets people invested. No, a cup of water or something would be sufficient.”

Mug - $0.34. Water for it - less than a penny.

Felix would pay quite a bit more than that to get the stranger out of his home. Slowly and carefully, never taking his eyes off the self-proclaimed wizard, Felix grabbed a mug and filled it with water.

Paracelsus clapped his hands together.

“Most excellent! Now, normally I’d ask you to watch closely, but we are currently in the mundane world. As I explained before, any magical action I take will be replaced with a mundane one to accomplish the same result, albeit with a significantly increased amount of magical power required to create the effect. This will be the worst demonstration from a practical perspective. Please study the mug in question. You see this small chip here? The textured pattern? Difficult for me to replicate from nothing, yes?”

He glanced up at Felix, who’d slowly forgotten his caution and was leaning closer.

“My boy, when you are in class with me, I will be expecting you to take proper notes. As you have not yet accepted an offer to attend Camelot, I will let it pass for now, but how do you expect to learn anything if you are not writing down the information? Now, observe the swirling pattern made in the water.” 

Paracelsus slowly swirled the water around in the cup.

“And… transmute!”

As he said the last word, he quickly shoved the cup into his robes, and pulled out a much smaller, but otherwise identical one made out of solid gold. It was the worst sleight-of-hand that Felix had ever seen! There wasn’t even an attempt at making it look legit.

“As you can see, I’ve turned it from its preexisting matter into solid gold. You can see the same chip in the cup here, the pattern is identical, although much harder to see in a single color and material, and the wave pattern in the water has been preserved. The nature of alchemy meant that I am limited to the matter I originally started with, and given the relative densities, we have a much smaller result. However - magic! Are you convinced, or do you need another demonstration?”

Felix picked up the small cup, both surprised and not by its weight. It did weigh the same as the cup he’d originally passed the man, but it was so much smaller!

“And this is solid gold?” Felix asked.

“Yes.”

“I can keep it?” He asked. Paracelsus rolled his eyes.

“This is the issue with the gold demonstration.” He muttered. “Too much of a focus on the end result, not nearly enough on the process. ”

Felix barely heard him. His attention was entirely taken up by the miniature mug made out of solid gold. He didn’t know the spot price or melt price of gold off hand, but he had a sudden urge to run out to a pawn shop and start getting some solid numbers.

Either way, it was worth far more than the $0.35 of material that went into it. Parlor trick or no… there had to be a catch somewhere.

“Are you convinced yet that magic exists, or do you need further demonstration? There’s no chance there’s been a number of unexplained or odd occurrences around you growing up?” 

“Nothing I can think of.” Felix said absent-mindedly. There just hadn’t been anything weird. No random blue hair, no vanishing glass, no teleportation or summoning things to his hand. No talking with snakes.

“A shame, but not unusual.” Paracelsus said. “I would personally classify not seeing anything on the clothing I wore earlier as an event, but that is unlikely to count in your mind.”

Yes. The practically naked hobo being practically naked was not good evidence to the existence of magic. Excellent evidence of drugs and or mental illness, but not magic. 

“Another demonstration would be good.” Felix slyly replied. “Can you turn the table into gold?”

“Your attempt is as transparent as a mirror.” Paracelsus replied. “I wasn’t born yesterday. What demonstration would convince you that magic is real? Keep in mind, I will require you to take proper notes this time round.”

Felix turned the gold over in his hands, questioning everything he knew about life.

Magic… could magic be real? James hadn’t talked him into trying anything strange, right? He wasn’t high as a kite right now? Felix had always avoided drugs, seeing where they had led to… but it seemed like he was in wonderland right now, no acid required.

“What do you suggest?” Felix asked.

Paracelsus tapped the table.

“That, young man, you start taking notes like I’ve been saying.”

The golden-maned man stared at Felix until the boy stood up and grabbed paper and pencil.

“Right. I’d like you to take a number of observational notes. Please look at your stove. Is there anything on it? Then write down why you’ve taken the notes. The more comprehensive, the better.”

Felix shrugged, and started writing.

There’s nothing on the stove. I’m writing this because Paracelsus is trying to convince me magic exists.

The wizard was clearly reading Felix’s note upside down.

“I would suggest including that it’s a true observation, and should you suddenly believe otherwise, it strongly suggests the existence of magic.”

Felix wrote down the additional text.

This is true right now. If I don’t think it’s true, it suggests magic exists.

“Excellent. I will now use magic to make a cup of tea.”

Paracelsus drew a stone from his robes, and it briefly glowed. He then went over to the stove, and grabbed the boiling kettle off of it. Paracelsus had put it on when he first entered the trailer, and a spike of pain went through Felix’s head as he remembered how the two of them had jockeyed around. Then he took a pair of cups out of his robe - Felix wondered just how much was he hiding in there? - and poured out two cups of tea. The alchemist dunked in some teabags, then stuck them into his pocket before putting both cups down in front of Felix. The man looked utterly drained, like he’d just finished running a marathon.

“Magic.” Paracelsus declared.

“But-” Felix protested. The mage didn’t let him finish, tapping on the note Felix had made.

“Magic.” Paracelsus insisted.

Felix reread the note, and believed.