Quiet Research

Eric started walking, then paused.

Lyren turned to him. “What?”

Eric looked toward the library, then back to Lyren. “You know what? I think Welyvyne and I should head to the library. You can go find Kaelen if you want. I have more important things to do than chase after whatever his father wants from me.”

Lyren shrugged. “Sure. I’ll go grab Kaelen and bring him back to the library if I find him.”

She waved and walked toward the market.

Eric turned to Welyvyne. “Do you want to head to the library? I kind of made that choice for you.”

Welyvyne smiled, nodded, and turned toward the library without a word.

Eric hesitated for half a step before following. He wasn’t sure why that made him uncomfortable. She clearly didn’t mind.

A few minutes later, Eric and Welyvyne entered one of the largest buildings in the city. The library was massive, resembling a church more than any library Eric had ever seen.

He paused near the entrance, marveling at the scale of it. Rows and rows of books filled ornate shelves that stretched far above him, and the place was surprisingly busy. People slid tall ladders along the aisles while others were already halfway up, pulling books down from the upper shelves. A dozen more sat reading at tables, their books ranging from what looked like fiction to magic theory to the histories of places Eric had never heard of.

His eyes drifted upward, past the first level to the four floors above it. Each floor wrapped around the open center behind carved railings, turning the entire building into a towering mezzanine of books.

Welyvyne interrupted his awe when she walked up, waving a stack of book locations in his face. “I think I have everything we might need to study for your armor.”

Eric looked at the stack, then back over to the index. “What? When did you have time to write all of this?”

She smirked. “I already had an idea of what we might need. I went to the Artificing section, tapped each book card I wanted, and the index wrote them out for me.”

Eric looked at the cards. They were, in fact, written. Not typed or printed, but written.

“How?”

Welyvyne gave him a knowing look and shook her head. “Later. Here, take half and go grab the books.”

Eric and Welyvyne climbed to the third floor, where the entire artificing section occupied a single bookshelf. They worked through the cards one by one, pulling a good number of books from the shelves.

Once they had gathered the books, they carried the stack to a nearby reading table. Eric set his half down with a heavy thump, earning a sharp look from someone reading two tables over.

Welyvyne gave him a flat look.

Eric winced. “Right. Library.”

Eric skimmed through a few books before getting sidetracked by one on golems. The diagrams showed the control structure as a wheel of runes, with each function branching out like a spoke from the mana recharge rune at the center. Every spoke seemed to include a mind rune and a mnemonic anchor, as if each command needed both intent and memory to hold its shape.

Eric squinted at the wheel of runes.

Why so many mnemonics? Why not use directional impressions and other intent-based controls? Why did each function even need to be in a line?

He studied the diagram a moment longer before the answer clicked. Interference. That had to be the problem. With the discs, he could compress all of this into a smaller area and make it far more complicated.

He looked at Welyvyne with a big grin. “I know what we’re working on after the armor. Oh, and any luck?”

She looked down at what he was reading. “I didn’t have golems on the list.”

Eric chuckled and pulled another book from the pile. “You didn’t have focused spell anchors either, but they looked interesting, so I grabbed them.”

She shook her head. “I thought you were focused.”

Eric laughed and shook his head. “I am focused. I’m just not entirely focused on one thing right now. I have a lot to do, and I feel like I have no time to do it in.”

Welyvyne tipped her head at him. “And that is why we are doing it together. I don’t exactly know what is going on in your head, but I do trust that you do. So tell me, how can I help?”

“You are,” Eric said, pointing at the book Welyvyne was reading. “You’re working on spell empowering. I’m working on external defenses.”

Lyren walked up, pointing her thumb back at Kaelen. “Found him. He was sitting at Kyllian’s, waiting for us to show up.”

Kaelen stepped up beside her. “And today, of all days, you decided to eat somewhere else.”

Eric shrugged. “Just breaking up my predictable patterns.”

Kaelen nodded once. “Good idea. Though, my father would like to speak with you.”

Eric gave Kaelen a wry smile. “I’m aware. We met your brother. He already informed us. What does he want, Kaelen?”

Kaelen frowned for a moment. “I told him what happened, though everyone knows by now. He wanted to meet you and invite you into the house.”

Eric chuckled wryly. “That’s nice of him, allowing me into his house, but why? For what reason?”

Kaelen looked at Eric, confused for a second, then realization showed on his face. “Not into the house. Into our house of nobles. He wants to meet you to decide if our house should protect you, though I think that is more of a formality.”

Eric shook his head. “And what about Welyvyne? From what I understand, you didn’t include her. Any reason why?”

Kaelen looked at her and frowned. “Honestly, I didn’t think of Welyvyne as separate from you. I guess I combined you two into one person.”

He turned to Welyvyne. “I’m sorry, Welyvyne. I should have included you. Of course you’re invited, and I’ll explain my mistake to my father.”

Welyvyne scowled. “That’s a cute excuse, Kaelen, but you didn’t consider me because I was never your job.”

Kaelen worked his jaw for a moment before letting out a sigh. “You may be correct. I’m not sure. I do see you and Eric as one person, but you’re right. You weren’t my job. That was my mistake, not your value.”

Eric looked between them before tapping his knuckles against the table. “In my world, powerful people don’t offer protection for free. You still haven’t answered the question, Kaelen. You’ve only told me half of it. What does he want?”

Kaelen frowned and turned to Eric. “That is fair. He is inviting you into our house because I asked him to, but he will also want to assess whether you can be useful.”

Eric nodded. “That’s what I thought. Why did you want me in your house?”

Kaelen’s frown deepened. “I didn’t. Not at first. I asked for help with the investigation. My family refused because it would cause tension between the houses involved.”

He sighed. “My father suggested another path. If you joined our house and fell under our protection, it would give you armor. Political armor. The kind other houses would hesitate to strike.”

“So,” Eric said, working through the implication, “you think a noble house is responsible for the hit?”

Kaelen nodded. “It only makes sense.”

Eric shook his head and frowned. “No, Kaelen. Why would I be on a noble house’s radar? What makes me so special that a noble house would think I was a threat? It certainly isn’t the Keith history. That doesn’t make sense.”

Kaelen looked at Eric, confused. “What is a ray dar? Never mind. Why wouldn’t you be? You’re a human in our city. Humans tend to destabilize places.”

Eric scowled deeply. “There it is. No, that isn’t a good explanation. You’re what, fifty-one? Fifty-two? Doesn’t matter. You’ll outlive me by, what, nineteen hundred years? I’m guessing. I have no idea what your actual longevity is, but still. Anything I could possibly do would make me a temporary problem.”

Welyvyne cleared her throat at that. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Eric. I’ve been thinking about your current form. You say you’re fifty-one, correct? Well, why would the heavens place you in a younger body? To be honest, I don’t think they would. I think they put you in a fifty-year-old body for someone with a lifespan similar to ours.”

Eric just blinked.

Welyvyne continued. “Look, Eric, why would the heavens change your whole race? They wouldn’t. Something happened to you in transit, and the heavens did what they could. Since you came to an elven city, maybe they thought you should be more like us.”

Eric looked down and pressed his fingers to his temples. “That... makes a kind of sense. How long have you thought that?”

Welyvyne frowned. “Since the first time you showed me your... soul.”

Eric shook his head rapidly. “Yeah, we’ll get to that later. Kaelen, I do not think a noble did it. You are not responsible for what happened. Why do you care so much?”

Kaelen frowned and hung his head. “Because I regret my decision to watch you, and I regret that I continued after I understood the man you were.”

Eric sighed. “I don’t blame you for watching me. You didn’t know me then. To be honest, when I woke up and attacked you over it, I wasn’t actually angry at you. I was angry at myself. You didn’t fail anyone. You have always been true to who you are.”

Kaelen looked up, gave Eric a wry smile, and huffed. “You see, this is why when my father suggested you join our house, I thought that was the best case. I’d be gaining more than a friend, I’d be gaining another brother.”

Then he looked at Welyvyne. “And sister.”

Welyvyne laughed. “Good save, Kaelen. I’m also sorry for how I treated you. Eric is right. You didn’t know him, and you weren’t doing anything wrong. But I did trust you, and you broke my heart.”

Kaelen sighed deeply. “I regret that most of all, I broke the hearts of people I began to care about.”

Lyren giggled. “It’s about time. Jeez, now kiss and make up, you three.”

Eric, Welyvyne, and Kaelen all turned to Lyren at the same time and glared at her before bursting out laughing. Several people began shushing them, and they quickly lowered their voices.

Eric tapped the table after everyone regained their composure. “Okay, then. We need to finish up here and check out these books, then we can head to your house for dinner. How does that sound to everyone?”

Welyvyne nodded.

Lyren smiled. “I’ve always wanted to see Kaelen’s house.”

Kaelen smiled wider than Eric had ever seen him smile. “I’ll go inform the household to expect three more, then. I’ll meet you there around five bells.”

Kaelen turned and left.

Lyren watched him go. “Did he seem a little too happy?”

Welyvyne nodded. “Definitely.”

Eric huffed. “Yeah, maybe a bit.”

Eric looked between them. “Does anyone have any idea where he lives?”

Lyren laughed, then covered her mouth. “Nope. I have no idea.”

Welyvyne just shook her head. “No.”

Eric sighed and chuckled. “Surely someone can point us in the right direction.”

After about an hour, Eric and Welyvyne finished up. Lyren wandered off and came back with some sort of romance novel. Welyvyne looked up, smiled, and nodded in approval before putting her nose back in her book.

After that, they checked out the books, and Eric put them all in his inventory. Then they got lost looking for Kaelen’s house, which turned out to be near the north gate.

The manors there were large, each surrounded by manicured flower gardens and smooth stone fences with filigree embedded into the surface. Eric realized a moment later that the spaces between the filigree were actually filled with ward runes, hidden subtly among the decorative lines.

When they reached Kaelen’s house, they gathered at the gate, where a guard opened it.

“You are expected,” the guard said.

He led them to the large front door, where a butler took them inside and offered to take their coats and cloaks.

Kaelen was already waiting for them near the entrance. “Welcome to our home, my friends.”