She’s happy to show him the message spell. It’s easy. Caleb had really been the one to put the work in, to figure it all out — Nott just put the bits together. She explains it to him, peering up and over across the bed like he’s giving her a test, asking her to prove his work, the way her teachers used to, back when she was Veth and went to school.
Caleb corrects her: I do not know this spell. Honestly I do not.
No, you told me about it. You told me there were spells that let you talk to people.
There’s no point in arguing about it. She doesn’t know why he’s being so stubborn about taking the credit. But she shows him the parts she figured out: how to twist her fingers around, the way wire works but string doesn’t.
After Caleb has the knack for it — so quickly, she’s so proud — he frustrates her by insisting on mapping it all out in his book.
Caleb. You don’t have to do that. It’s not that kind of magic. You can just do it.
Yes, but it is a good habit, it is good to write your magic down, it helps you understand — here, see, and he’d tried to show her in diagrams, how this abbreviated bit of lines and terms was the same as this bit in this other spell… Nott listens politely. Makes encouraging sounds.
He notices her boredom. Perhaps you’d like your own spell book? he asks, his eyes lighting up.
I don’t know how to memorize magic. I just copied you. I’m not …
She imagines having a spell book. Writing out spells and studying all the lines and words. Waving her hands around and throwing bolts of ice or acid or fire. It makes her chest tight with anxiety. She can’t do that. She’d look stupid even trying.
But a few days later, Caleb presents her with a small book. Halfling sized, goblin sized, comfortable in her hands. A plain good smelling leather cover, a few dozen thick blank pages.
She says thank you and he looks happy.
To please him, that night, Nott opens it to the first page and borrows a pen and some of his special ink. He offers to help her, but she tells him no thanks. Is aware of him watching, smiling, proudly, as she writes neatly on the top of the first page.
Six months later, and her spellbook remains mostly empty. Message on the first page, and the second a numbered list of her other tricks: an illusion, an illusion that’s really good, shocking people (not rugs).
Page three: Featherfall, meticulously copied from Caleb’s book.
Page four: the recipe for brewing acid, the recipe for brewing flamable oil.
Page five and six: doodles of dicks, a joint collaboration in the back of a cart.
The rest was empty, and Nott had given the book to Caleb for safe keeping, feeling guilty when he’d tucked the notebook in with his own books under his coat, before she’d forgotten it entirely.
Caleb flips through it now. Only a week ago she’d narrowed her eyes at fire giants and turned herself invisible, and yet he sees no trace of the spell in her book, which she hasn’t asked for or touched in weeks. He’d wanted to check, just to make sure. But no.
Do you know how clever you are? He’s sure he’s asked her. Remembers her queasy smile.
He traces his fingers over the dried ink on the first page: This spell lets me talk to Caleb, in her surprisingly tidy handwriting.
Caleb puts the book away, smiling.
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