Siege of Skyhold Preview Chapters 2&3

Really meant to get this month's short story done today, but it's kicking my butt. Partially due to the difficulty of the story itself- it's in first person, which isn't my usual territory, and it's also another "scientific puzzle" type story, like the Mirror Mage stories. Those can be pretty tricky. Most of the butt-kicking is just leftover from writing book 5, though- crunch time really takes it out of me, and I'm still not really mentally recovered there. Trying to work on getting a healthier writing schedule, but it's an ongoing process. So... more preview chapters! (Short story next month, I promise. This one's already over half done, and I've figured out most of the actual science aspects.) And this isn't necessarily the final version, so there might be changes in the actual book.

Chapter 2: Philosophy of Armor

Hugh knew he was recovering absurdly fast, at least by normal standards. Without a healer, he would have died in Ithos, and even if he’d miraculously survived, it would have taken years to recover, if ever. He was feeling stronger every day, able to walk longer without exhausting himself and talk longer without breaking down into coughing.

Though that still didn’t stop him from feeling endlessly frustrated with the speed of his progress. 

Or with the way his body kept swelling up with fluids every night as he slept. Most mornings, he could barely move, he was so puffy and swollen. Apparently, his body didn’t understand that it wasn’t burnt any longer, and kept trying to heal burns that weren’t there anymore. According to Grennan, it took the body time to catch up with magical healing— longer the worse the healed injuries were.

He was getting fewer headaches than he had been, at least, and his mental focus was getting back to normal more swiftly than his body was.

On the third day after Alustin’s return, he came to an abrupt realization.

He was idly tracing some of the wards in the cave with his eyes, a sleeping Mackerel next to him, when it came to him. The wards seemed deeply familiar, for some reason. It was as if…

Hugh stood up and grabbed Mackerel off the ground, much to the spellbook’s surprise and disorientation. Not for the first time, Hugh reminded himself that he needed to get Mackerel a new strap. 

Mind racing, Hugh stalked off to find Alustin.

He found the paper mage working at a table on the second floor of the cave, repetitiously copying complex glyphs on page after page of paper. Alustin’s magic, for all its combat effectiveness, required significantly more preparation time than many other battle mages.

“Loarna’s here,” Hugh said.

Alustin raised an eyebrow.

Hugh opened up the still-groggy Mackerel to write in, to save his voice.

I recognize her ward work, Hugh wrote. It’s elegant, it’s precise, and it uses as few ward-lines as possible to accomplish its tasks. I can’t even make my wards as spare as her, even with will imbuing. Not that I really want to, I prefer more redundancies in my wards. She’s definitely here.

“You’re right, she is,” Alustin said. “What of it?”

I need to speak to her, Hugh wrote.

“Loarna’s a deeply private person,” Alustin said. “She has… difficulties… with people. Her unusual class structure isn’t merely an educational eccentricity on her part. If you’re just wanting to speak with her out of curiosity, I can’t in good conscience…”

Tell her I’m working on a recombinant noncontiguous ward, and I need advice, Hugh wrote.

Alustin blinked at that. “I… I’m honestly not even sure what to say to that. That seems a bit absurd, to be honest. I don’t see why you’d need recombinant wards in the first place, since they’re mainly intended as a way for mages like myself to put up a ward in a hurry, which isn’t a problem for you. And to the best of my knowledge, noncontiguous wards aren’t even theoretically possible. I’m not even sure what the combination would do, look like, or be needed for.”

Hugh just smiled at Alustin.

Finally, the gangly paper mage sighed. “I’ll let her know. But in exchange, I need you to do something for me. I need you to talk to Kanderon.”

Hugh gave Alustin a curious look.

“Skyhold needs Kanderon back, Hugh. You’re the only reason she’s staying put here, and I suspect you’re the only one who can convince her to move.”

Hugh hesitated, then nodded. The thought made part of him deeply uncomfortable, and he had no idea how he could convince Kanderon of anything, but he would try, at least. 

He needed to talk to Kanderon about his noncontiguous ward idea anyhow, so it wasn’t out of his way.

 ------------------------------

“I don’t understand what you mean by the philosophy of my armor,” Sabae said.

Artur scratched at his beard and grimaced. It was a frequent tell Sabae had noticed from the stone mage when he was deep in thought.

“Armor doesn’t just… stop yeh from gettin’ hurt,” Artur said. “It has to have a specific means of doing so, of preventing the power of an attack from getting to you.”

“My wind?” Sabae asked. She glanced in puzzlement at the others. They were all sitting at a table grown out of the stone of the cave’s upper balcony, looking out over their little valley. Godrick didn’t seem to be paying attention— he was repeatedly shifting a lump of sand into quartzite, then back into sand. Talia just shrugged, then sipped her revolting Tsarnassan fermented tea. 

“Nah, not that sort a’ means,” Artur said. “It might be best if ah explain it by example. Take a metal breastplate. It protects yeh via redistribution. The force from a sword-strike gets spread out across the whole breastplate, and doesn’t bring enough force ta’ bear on any one spot ta’ cause yeh harm. The redistribution a’ force is the means, not the metal itself. Or take a regular windshield, not yer weird one. It doesn’t redistribute force, it bleeds it off and redirects it. It forces an attack ta’ waste its energy on the windshield. It’s that drainin’, that pushin’ against, that does the trick there. Godrick, are yeh even paying attention?”

Godrick shook his head, not taking his eyes off his lump of half-fused quartzite. “You’ve given me this lecture before, da. I’m training my lithification spells.”

“A refresher wouldn’t hurt yeh,” Artur said. “Yeh’ll need ta’ consider yer own armor’s philosophy soon enough— just mimickin’ mine won’t be enough. And why are yeh so focused on lithification spells?”

“Yeh said they make yer stone magic more powerful?” Godrick asked.

Artur gave his son a long, considering look, then sighed. “It does improve yer control over stone, but only types a’ stone yeh practice makin’ with the spells. Make sure ta’ vary yer practice.”

“What’s the philosophy behind your armor?” Sabae asked.

“Sheer size?” Talia suggested.

Artur snorted at that. “Pretty much. Alustin’s armor is more interestin’— the outer layers a’ his crumple ta’ waste the force a’ attacks, while the inner ones are incredibly strong, and almost as good as steel at redistributin’ impacts. Not great against blades, but still impressive fer’ paper. But how armor protects yeh is only part a’ the question. There’s also how yeh move in it, how long it takes ta’ put on— there’s a lot goin’ inta the construction of regular armor other than just materials, and even more inta’ mage armor. And there’s no one best way ta’ build armor, either— different approaches are better fer different situations.”

“So mine would be… spinning? Redirection?” Sabae asked. 

Artur shrugged. “Might be. Yeh’ll need ta’ give it some serious thought. Ah’ve never heard a’ armor or magic exactly like yers, and who’s ta’ say where it’ll end up? Maybe yeh’ll even figure out that weavin’ idea.”

Sabae frowned at that. She’d been absolutely convinced that weaving the different parts of her magic together in her armor would work, instead of trying to layer or merge them. She’d thought that was the direction Alustin was pushing her, but wanted her to figure it out the hard way.

When she’d said that to him after the battle in the ruins of Ithos, however, he just gave her a blank look, then told her that weaving her armor sounded like a terrible idea, and that he’d been leading her in no such direction.

For the first time, Sabae found herself disagreeing with Alustin about how to do magic. For all her other disagreements with him, she had never had any doubt in his training or knowledge. It was rather surprising how uncomfortable she felt about disagreeing with him about this.

“So, uh…” Talia said. “What about wards?”

Artur smiled widely at that. “Ah’m glad yeh asked. Wards are a bit weird in this regard— they work by changin’ the rules fer a space, or at least the rules a’ the borders a’ the space. They’re not pushin’ against or redistributin’ force, they’re changin’ the rules a’ the space itself.”

Talia nodded absently, then sighed.

“I think I need my own armor,” she said.

Everyone gave her startled looks at that.

“I thought you said armor was for people with insufficient firepower?” Sabae asked. 

Talia pulled up her sleeve, revealing a fresh, ugly scar on her shoulder. Her spellform tattoos had already started healing over it, but it was still the first thing the eye was drawn to.

“I was wrong,” Talia said. “If I’d been a second slower burning Grovebringer’s arrow out of me, I would have died, a tree growing out of my corpse. You all have defensive armor, even Alustin. Hugh has his wards, but I have… nothing. I can’t always be the fastest to cast spells, or be able to notice ambushers before they notice me.”

Sabae thought about teasing the redhead about the admission, but decided against it when she noticed how serious the other girl looked. 

“What were yeh thinkin?” Artur said. “Neither a’ yer affinities are particularly well suited ta’ armor— despite the fact bone mages are usually some a’ the best on defense. Were yeh wantin’ ta’ commission physical armor, or…?” 

“I don’t know,” Talia said. “I’d actually been trying to create mobile floating wards out of dreamfire around myself. The only problem is that dreamfire is really unstable and shifts around a lot, especially in any sort of breeze, so I haven’t been able to make any stable wards so far. I’d prefer not to commission enchanted armor, because that’d be absurdly expensive even for me. I had a couple other ideas involving wards, too, but I just don’t know enough about them to know if they’d work.”

“Have yeh talked ta’ Hugh about the wards?” Artur asked.

Talia shook her head. “He’s still healing, and I’m sure he’d think my ward ideas were terrible, and…”

“Talk ta’ Hugh about it,” Artur interrupted. “Ah’m sure he’d welcome the distraction and be happy ta’ help yeh. Also, did yeh forget that yeh’re datin’, now? Yeh’re bein’ ridiculous. Actually, all three a’ yeh are bein’ a bit ridiculous, as though yeh need ta’ get powerful all at once. It’s not a race.”

“Tell that ta’ Havath,” Godrick said. “We could have died in Ithos. Hugh almost did, and if ah’d been a little faster, or a little more powerful, maybe ah coulda prevented him bein’ injured in the first place.”

Talia nodded at that, and Sabae hesitated, but followed suit a moment later.

Artur chuckled. “Yeh’re not even eighteen, and yeh’re already each more dangerous than an average battlemage, and yeh think that’s not enough?”

Godrick didn’t say anything, just turned back to his lithification practice. Sabae and Talia just stared at Artur.

The big mage sighed. “Yeh’ve all got a lot ta’ learn still. Yeh’ll get more powerful, but there’s a lot a’ risk in rushin’ it. Can’t tell yeh how many apprentices ah’ve seen injure themselves, tryin’ ta’ go too fast.”

“The Havath Dominion doesn’t seem likely to be patient and give us all the time we need,” Sabae said.

Artur started to respond, then frowned and started scratching at his beard.

Sabae stayed silent— Artur was the type to dig in if you pushed him too hard, but if you stepped back, he’d stumble forwards soon enough.

Finally, he sighed. “There are ways. Most a’ them aren’t worth it, and a lot a’ the others involve sacrificing yer future growth or even yer health, but ah can think of a’ few things we can do.”

All three of the apprentices leaned forwards at that.

“First,” Artur said, “we can try an’ talk Kanderon inta’ givin’ yeh all those storage tattoos the Librarians Errant all have early. Ah’ve often wished ah had one mahself, though not enough ta’ join the Librarians Errant. Probably not what yeh were thinkin’ of, ah know, but don’t underestimate the value of being able ta’ carry anythin’ yeh need with yerself. Though, Talia, ah’m not sure it’ll be possible fer yeh ta get one, given how many tattoos yeh already got.”

Talia hesitated. “I… I think I might actually know how to get around that. I’ll need to think about it, though.”

Sabae nodded, trying not to seem too eager about getting one of those tattoos. That would be a huge advantage. Plus, it would just be nice to keep her hands free more often.

“Ah don’t know much about magical tattoos, so that’s something we’ll need ta’ talk ta’ an expert about,” Artur said. “Next, however, we can put yeh in an accelerated curriculum. More class hours each day, and puttin’ off everythin’ that isn’t a magic class. Yeh’ll still need ta’ take those classes eventually— Skyhold requirements aside, ah’m not havin’ mah son lack a basic education in history— but it’ll give yeh the time ta’ accelerate yer trainin’. Ah’ll have ta’ run that by Alustin, though. Ah’m not even sure ah should— it’s uncomfortably easy ta’ sacrifice the future fer’ the present, doin’ that sort a’ thing.”

“I was hopin’ yeh might have somethin’ more unusual, not just more classes,” Godrick said. 

Artur gave his son a serious look. “Yeh’re as powerful as yeh are because a’ what yeh learned in class. And none a’ yeh are as far along with yer magic as yeh could be. Especially Sabae— yeh’ve got a whole fourth affinity yeh aren’t even usin’ yet. And Godrick, yeh barely know how ta’ use yer scent affinity, beyond a handful a’ specific spells.”

Sabae winced and ran her hand down one of her scars. She’d known she needed to start learning to use her lightning affinity eventually, but she still sometimes dreamt about the pain she’d felt the first time she’d tried to learn to use lightning back in Ras Andis.

“Mah scent affinity doesn’t make any sense,” Godrick muttered. “All the spells are bizarrely specific, and… ah dunno, just weird.”

Artur shrugged. “We need ta’ find yeh a teacher, then. Ah’ve been lookin’ fer one fer a while, but ah can pick up the pace even more. And ah have some other, more unusual ideas fer yeh all, but ah’ll need ta’ do some thinkin’ and research before I get yer hopes up.”

Godrick scowled, and Sabae gave him a sympathetic look.

Chapter 3: Loarna of the Vault

Kanderon was doing something inscrutable with crystals when Hugh finally felt like he was ready to speak to her the next day.

 She had set up a hovering grid of crystals in mid-air, and was rapidly shuffling them around with her magic in an orderly pattern. What, exactly, the order was, Hugh couldn’t say. Next to her, a crystal pen was rapidly writing out numbers in a book on the floor, occasionally stopping to dip itself in an inkwell.

“It’s somewhat like an abacus,” Kanderon said, unprompted.

Hugh gave her a confused look.

Kanderon paused the movement of the crystal grid and gestured at it. “It’s like an abacus, but designed to handle far more complex mathematical operations. The location and quantity of crystals stand in for various numbers and operations. Much of it would be familiar to you if I wrote it out, since I’ve been teaching you the foundations for this math for some time now.”

Hugh opened up Mackerel and wrote in him.

You’re planning a spatial affinity spell?

Kanderon frowned at that. “Not a spatial affinity spell, a planar one. They’re highly similar, yet still distinct. I’ve told you this before.”

What’s the difference?

“Planar is to spatial what iron is to steel, or stellar is to solar, or stone is to granite.”

So… weaker? But didn’t you develop our planar affinity artificially? Why would you choose the weaker one?

“I also developed our stellar affinity artificially, crystal is our only natural affinity. As for why… weaker, yes, but more versatile, able to affect more.”

Hugh sat on the stone near Kanderon to consider that. She stared at him for a moment, and then a chair began crystallizing out of the stone floor beneath him. Mostly garnet, it felt like. 

It wasn’t precisely the most comfortable seat, but better than just sitting on the cave floor. 

“Thank you,” he said out loud.

Kanderon nodded.

So I think I understand why you’d pick a stellar affinity over a solar affinity— I suppose a stellar affinity might be more effective at night, when we see better? But I honestly don’t understand what greater versatility means at all when it comes to planar versus spatial affinities.

Kanderon actually smiled at that. “While stellar affinities are slightly more effective than solar affinities at night, it’s a narrow margin, and not the reason I chose our affinities. Stellar affinities work under the light of any star, while solar affinities only work well under the light of our sun. Or, a bit more literally— solar and spatial affinities only work well on Anastis, while stellar and planar affinities work anywhere.”

Hugh blinked at that.

“You chose our affinities for traveling to other worlds? Have you ever been to other worlds?” he asked. 

He immediately regretted it when he started coughing.

Kanderon patiently waited for him to stop coughing and drink water before she answered.

“I’ve lived most of a millennium, Hugh. Of course I have. And I didn’t choose them specifically for that reason, but it was a major consideration on my part. I doubt that was why you came to speak to me, however,” she said.

Hugh was about to respond when Mackerel struggled out of his hands and flew off. He turned in his chair to watch the book, thinking it was chasing a bird or insect, only to see it flying into Talia’s arms.

“Well hello to you too, Mackerel,” Talia said, gently scratching the book’s spine. She walked Mackerel back over to him, then climbed up on one of the arms of the crystal chair and draped an arm around Hugh. “What are you two talking about?” 

Kanderon gave Talia an irritated glare, then apparently decided to ignore her. Hugh leaned his head against her side, then wrote in Mackerel again, showing both Talia and Kanderon.

I wanted to talk two things, actually. The first is to do with our planar affinity, or at least one specific part of it. 

Kanderon frowned at that. “You’re a long way from having the mathematical or spellform construction background to cast any planar spells, Hugh. It’s entirely too risky to allow you to attempt casting a planar spell before you have that knowledge.”

Hugh shook his head at that. 

I don’t want to cast a planar spell, exactly. I want to adapt the parts of planar spellforms that define the distances encompassed by planar spell borders into a ward.

Kanderon’s frown shifted from irritation to puzzlement. “Why, exactly, would you want to do that? It seems like a much more complex and time consuming means of accomplishing a task that even the simplest wards do simply by being drawn.”

I want to make a noncontiguous ward. Well, a recombinant noncontiguous ward. 

Hugh reached into a belt pouch and pulled out a fist-sized quartz crystal, which he tossed over towards Kanderon, who caught it with her magic. Over the past week, he’d started crystallizing in various ward spellforms.

“A what now?” Talia asked him as Kanderon examined the chunk of quartz.

Hugh mentally sent an image to Mackerel, and the spellbook flipped a few of its crystal pages back to a set of notes with several diagrams Hugh had drawn. He knew for a fact that the diagram had been far earlier in the spellbook than that, but Mackerel seemed to be able to reorder his pages at will.

Talia spent several minutes puzzling over the diagram while Kanderon did the same to the crystal.

Almost at the same moment, both of them looked back at Hugh.

“Would this really work?” Talia asked.

“There’s no way this would work,” Kanderon said.

The two of them took a moment to sort out their confusion, then Talia glared at Kanderon. “If anyone can do it, Hugh can.”

Kanderon, to Hugh’s surprise, looked almost apologetic. Most of the time she appeared to consider Talia an unfortunately unavoidable nuisance. “I don’t mean to insult Hugh’s abilities with wards, I’m genuinely questioning whether it’s possible for anyone to do it at all.”

I asked Alustin to set up a meeting for me with Loarna, Hugh wrote, but I haven’t heard back about that yet.

Kanderon snorted, hard enough to ruffle Hugh’s hair. Talia’s hair was still too short to move very much in the wind, though it was growing back much faster than Hugh would have expected. 

“Loarna! In here, now!” Kanderon called, loud enough to make Hugh wince. She turned to them and spoke in a quieter voice. “If you’d left it to Loarna, it would have taken weeks for her to make up her mind about meeting you.”

Kanderon turned back to Hugh’s crystal for a moment, and then, with another snort, turned back to her floating crystal grid. She entirely reset the positions of the crystals, then began doing math rapidly, consulting Hugh’s crystals every now and then. 

Talia gently poked Hugh to get his attention again. “So if this is possible, would it be possible to… extend a ward out from the actual ward lines?”

Hugh nodded before writing again.

Of course. That’s part of every ward. You draw it on the ground, it extends up from the ward lines from there. On the ceiling, it extends down from there. 

Talia shook her head. “No, I mean extend it parallel and outside of the ward lines, not rising directly from them.”

She reached out to Mackerel and drew a pair of circles, one inside the other. She decorated the inner one with markings Hugh suspected were meant to represent a ward.

Hugh frowned, then nodded. It can, but isn’t often done, he wrote. The greater the area a ward encompasses outside the ward lines like that, the less stable it becomes. Over a certain size, it collapses entirely. 

“And if the distance is a couple hand widths?” Talia asked.

Hugh did some rough math in his head.

That should be fine so long as the ward itself isn’t too large, but I don’t really see the point. It makes the ward much more complex, and is simply an inferior solution to making the ward a little larger.

“Well, what if you want the ward hidden on, say, the opposite side of a wall, but still protecting that wall?” Talia asked.

Hugh gave her a curious look, but nodded.

“And, uh… I know wards can be more complex shapes than wards or lines, but can the shapes change during operation? Like, three-dimensional shapes whose parts move and shift relative to one another while staying connected?”

Kanderon actually looked up from her math at that.

Where are you going with this? Hugh wrote.

Talia gave him an embarrassed look. “This is probably a stupid idea, but… I was reading in the copy of Ruatha’s Ossuary you gave me, and he was talking about how some bone mages carve glyphs in their own bones so that you always have easy access to certain spells. He personally thought it was a bit silly, but it got me thinking that maybe you could carve, uh… wards into your bones? To act like armor?”

“It’s been tried before,” a quiet, unfamiliar voice said. “It always failed horribly, tore the mages apart from the inside out.”

Hugh looked up in time to see an attention ward dissolve, and a mousy older woman step out. She wore immense spectacles, and looked like the most stereotypical librarian from a children’s book ever. She even had a stick of chalk tucked behind one ear.

She caught Hugh’s glance, then winced and looked away.

“Ah, Loarna,” Kanderon said. “Took you long enough. That terrible idea wasn’t actually why I called you here. Hugh here had another, more interesting idea. You should…”

“I didn’t say it was terrible,” Loarna said quietly, staring at the ground.

Kanderon stopped. “Go on,” she said gently, as if worried about breaking her.

Hugh had often imagined what Loarna of the Vault might look like. She was the strangest teacher he’d ever had, never actually showing up to any classes. Instead, they were a series of escalating challenges that tested her students’ warding abilities, as well as their critical thinking and creativity, in unusual ways. He’d expected her to look strange and exotic— to maybe have hovering swords around her, like Aedan Dragonslayer, or an independently moving shadow, like some shadow mages he’d encountered.

Then he felt a tingling sensation from his crystal affinity sense, and realized there was something floating around her. Some sort of… crystalline dust, almost too small to see with the eye, filling the air near her.

Was that chalk dust?

“All the old mages that tried it did so decades or centuries ago,” Loarna said. “The last one I know of was before I was born. Warding has advanced significantly in those years. We’ve had huge advances in wardcrafting techniques since then.”

“Half of which you were involved in,” Kanderon said.

Loarna hunched over even more when Kanderon complimented her.

“You think it can be done?” Talia said. “My idea’s not terrible?”

Loarna slowly nodded.

“It’s an excellent idea,” Loarna said. “The problem is in the execution, not in the idea itself.”

“It’s a game-changer,” Kanderon said. “This would offer a huge advantage to any force wielding it. Personal defensive wards? Why has no one done this before?”

Loarna shrugged. “People have, just not with their bones. There are plenty of mages who get ward armor tattoos on the Cloudspine continent, for instance, or weave them into their clothes. It’s been common for at least thirty years now. Like any magic, there are advantages and disadvantages. You can’t ward against everything, and personal wards tend to use steadily increasing amounts of mana the longer you leave them on for— there’s a reason why normal wards tend to have simpler shapes. Not to mention, they tend to interfere with each other, so you couldn’t have more than a small handful of people with them in close proximity, which renders them useless for armies.”

“Not, however, for independent agents like the Librarians Errant,” Kanderon said. “We need to look into this immediately. Not just the bone wards, but the tattoos and clothing as well. You should have told me about this years ago.”

Loarna visibly crumpled in on herself.

Kanderon sighed. “I apologize, Loarna. I’m not angry, just excited. You had no way of knowing I’d be interested in these specific wards.”

Can we go back to the part where Talia’s planning to carve up her bones? Hugh wrote. I’m somewhat uncomfortable with that.

Talia rolled her eyes. “A normal bone mage would be able to do it simply with their magic and affinity sense, but causing explosions, even tiny ones, inside my body is a terrible idea. Alustin also has made it clear that I’m not ever to use bonefire on my own bones, for fear that it would set off a chain reaction and blow me up from the inside. I considered using dreamfire, but that could end up with bits of my bone turning into, I dunno, shards of glass inside me, or maybe tiny snakes? I don’t really want tiny snakes inside my flesh.”

“I can safely say that no one but a gorgon wants tiny snakes in their flesh,” Kanderon said. “Nor does anyone sane generally think about tiny snakes inside their flesh.”

Talia ignored her. “I thought about having healers cut me open and carve the wards into my bones, but then I stumbled across a passage in the Ossuary that mentioned that it was possible to tattoo living bones. You have to be a bit clever about it so as to not tattoo the skin when putting the needles in, and they have to go past the surface of the bone, but with a thin enough needle and healers on hand, it shouldn’t cause any lasting harm. I’d want to write to my family to confer with them about any potential interactions with my tattoos as well.”

You’re a madwoman, Hugh wrote, and I’m legitimately a little terrified of you sometimes.

Talia smiled at that and kissed him on the cheek.

“It will take considerable planning, but I believe it feasible,” Loarna said. “If that wasn’t what you called me here for, what was, then?”

“Hugh had an idea with… somewhat similar function to Talia’s, but far more ambitious,” Kanderon said. “Involving noncontiguous wards, which I don’t believe are even possible.”

“They are. I made one before with the help of a greater shadow mage once,” Loarna said.

Kanderon sighed heavily. “I think we need to have a long conversation soon, and I think you need to make more of an effort to inform me when you prove laws of magic incorrect, Loarna.”

After that, Loarna started going over Hugh’s notes and his crystal, as well as Kanderon’s math. Hugh hardly noticed Talia slip off as they moved farther away from the bone ward idea and into his own idea, engrossed as he was in the conversation.

It was already growing dark when they wrapped up, at which point Hugh remembered the second reason he’d come to speak to Kanderon.

It would be easier to work on and test all this back at Skyhold, wouldn’t it? 

Kanderon started to nod, then gave him a suspicious look. “Did Alustin put you up to asking?”

He did, but I only agreed because I think he’s correct. And it really would be easier to work back at Skyhold. And I really am starting to feel a lot better, I think I could handle the flight back.

Kanderon gave him an irritable look, then sighed. “I’ll consider it.”

Hugh smiled at her, then remembered something else.

He cleared his throat, deciding this was important enough to risk coughing. “Oh, and Loarna, it was good to finally meet…”

He turned as he spoke, then abruptly stopped.

Loarna had vanished again.

“She does that,” Kanderon said. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”

After thinking for a few minutes, Hugh wrote in Mackerel again and waved for Kanderon’s attention.

I need to tell you something.

“Yes, Hugh?”

You know how Mackerel ate the communication diary you gave me?

“What of it?”

Hugh took a deep breath, then started writing about the messages he’d intercepted between Kanderon and Keayda, and Kanderon and some unknown party. When he was done, he hesitated, half-convinced he shouldn’t tell Kanderon— then he forced himself to turn Mackerel around and show Kanderon his writing.

Kanderon read it, then raised her eyebrow at Hugh.

He squirmed in his crystal chair for a moment.

Then Kanderon smiled faintly and turned back to her calculations.

Hugh gave her a puzzled look, then felt the crystal structure of his chair shifting through his affinity sense. He turned to see writing forming on the arm of the chair.

Some things are best not spoken aloud, save in the most secure of locations, which this is not. I lack the ability to make my communications network entirely impervious to spying, Hugh, but I absolutely possess the ability to tell if anyone is listening in, and to take corrective measures. The issue will not repeat itself.

Hugh frowned as the message erased itself.

“Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?” Kanderon said out loud.

Hugh picked up the hint, and changed the topic, asking Kanderon about the fact he hadn’t acquired a rare book for the Library this year— a requirement she gladly waived for him this time around.

He was, however, absolutely convinced there was a lot she wasn’t telling him about the mysterious messages.