Page 70 of Twisted Magic

She opened the tome—a history of the high houses of the Convocation—to the marked page and read. It was very dry, the sort of recitation of names and dates that made her eyes cross with instantaneous boredom. Going back to the founding of the Convocation, the historian demonstrated a fiendish love for details, particularly those that glorified the establishment of Convocation law and custom, delving with glee into the minutiae of which house set which precedent. None of it relevant to her interests.

“Why am I reading this?” she asked plaintively, after forcing herself to read several pages.

Cillian put down his own book and gave her an owlish look. “What do you notice?” he prompted in his schoolteacher manner.

“I notice a lot of dates and incredibly boring precedents for laws.”

“What else?”

She closed the book with a thump—keeping his bookmark where it had been, since she wasn’t a monster—and leveled a glare at him. “Enough with the game-playing. Just tell me, Wizard Cillian.”

“Why Wizard Alise,” he replied, sounding a little hurt, “I’m not playing games. I thought you’d like to experience the joy of discovering for yourself.”

She rubbed the spot between and just above her eyebrows, which tended to ache when she was tired or frustrated. Right now, she was both. “I take joy from having information, not in the acquiring of it.”

“Never thought to meet such a strange creature,” he muttered to himself, narrowing his eyes at her. “How much did you sleep last night?”

“None of your business,” she snapped.

“So… barely any?”

“I had several tasks to tie up before I could leave,” she answered. “I don’t have the same freedom you do.” And didn’t that rankle? She’d had a life for a while, before she’d given it up to pursue this fruitless task of looking for information that wasn’t there.

“Eat a cinnamon roll,” he suggested, pointing a finger at the basket she’d set at her feet.

“I’m pretty sure food doesn’t substitute for sleep.”

“Maybe not, but it helps. Besides they’re getting cold, which shows a distressing lack of regard for the unique delight that is a cinnamon roll still warm from baking.”

“When did you bake them anyway?” she asked sourly, snagging a roll from the basket, if only to shut him up about it. Deliberately messing with his observational data on personality and eating habits, she bit into the side of the roll, disregarding the pattern of coils, telling herself it didn’t matter if it felt out of order. The sweet warmth penetrated right through her exhaustion, wrapping her up like a hug. She kept any sign of the pure bliss off her face, however, lest Cillian get more ideas about running her life.

“Earlier this morning,” he answered absently, his gaze and mind back on the book open on his lap.

She nearly choked on her cinnamon roll. “How much earlier this morning—or did you have magical assistance?” Alise wasn’t any kind of expert on baking, but she’d helped Nic with the running of House Phel—and the feeding of its growing population—enough to know that bread needed lots of time to rise. Hours. And that was before the actual cooking part.

“Please.” He looked physically pained. “Baking requires enough magic inherently without mucking up the process with other entities. Remember I work at night? I slept yesterday, worked a half-shift at the archives, then went back to my apartment for baking and packing.” He slid her a knowing look as she devoured her second roll. “I figured you’d need feeding.”

She didn’t stick her tongue out at him, because that would be immature and disgusting, covered as it was in half-masticated cinnamon roll, but it was a near thing. “Will you, pretty please with cinnamon on top, just tell me what you found in this book?”

“Fine, fine.” He heaved an exasperated sigh that was clearly for show. As she’d expected, he was more than pleased to reveal the fruits of his research. “The author—Wizard Dolores Harahel, you’ll note—was scrupulous about chronicling the history of the Convocation in precise order. She was known for it.”

“I did notice,” Alise commented drily. Then, relenting, she added, “I’m sure the trait is admirable in a historian.”

Cillian chuckled, more amused by that than she’d expect. “She has her detractors, as it’s a rather stultifying approach. But it’s useful to compare this text—obviously a recent re-issue by House Calliope—with the original. Or one of them.” He caught her peering around for this original he spoke of. “Not here,” he specified. “Books that old are in the rare book archives, but I did take a look at the oldest copy in the Convocation library last night, and I memorized these pages. I’m very interested to compare them to what’s in the Harahel archives, as I know we have a first edition there.”

“Are we getting to the part where you tell me what the differences are?”

“You’re a sassy one. Remember how I mentioned that House Xerograf was absolutely founded after House Phel? And yet Wizard Dolores Harahel mentions House Xerograf before any mention of House Phel.”

“Maybe House Phel didn’t contribute to these legal decisions.” Knowing the current members of the Phel family, she could believe that being a scofflaw and iconoclast was a family trait. No wonder they pissed off the other houses enough for the most powerful to conspire to have done with House Phel once and for all.

“Aha! Excellent logic. I thought of that, too.”

“Of course you did,” she muttered, not quietly enough, because he threw her a grin, undaunted by her sarcasm.

“That’s why I consulted the original in the archives. House Phel is mentioned in that version.

Alise stared at the book in her hands. “That version,” she repeated. “Is that common practice, to change the contents when they reprint books?”

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