Quill woke up and stretched luxuriously. His dreams had been of Denouement, and the pleasure he felt that she would shortly have concluded her business on his behalf. He chided himself gently that he had not yet concluded his business with her, and business was always to go before pleasure. A curiously unyielding principle, given the low-stakes nature of working at a library, but such was the way of a man of habit; you found yourself doing things with little notion of where the habit had come from. The air was cool, and he looked eagerly towards stoking the oven to make squash pancakes with which to use up the last of his sour cream before it truly spoiled. Given said chilly air, he belted his heavy robe over his nightclothes. It was a pity rune stoves were, in practice, only practical in warm climates, the fire runes drawing their heat from the already chilly air.

  But before pancakes, to collect the paper. Speaking of which… Quill took the previous day’s paper and stuffed it in his oven, to become kindling for a larger flame. As the call of “Extra, extra” came, he tipped the papergirl for coming to his door and sparing him a slippered trek through snow already piled as high as his boots. He could have sworn he had shoveled the walk, well, now that he thought about it he hadn’t since Monday. So he only had himself to blame for two days’ accumulation of snow, unless he was going to be a mighty fire sorcerer calling down a rain of ash to melt said snow. Quill shook his head. Parchment didn’t even have time for sorcery and she was guildmistress of the Earth Guild. Glue, meanwhile, was Glue. Their special interest was the mind. Just don’t suggest to them that fire or water was more suited to blumbing the mind’s depth. Quill, on the other hand, had a great deal of blood and meditation invested in an axiom spirit of lore. Just don’t suggest to him that animals knew of herbalism and that he could have invested his time and effort into a fey spirit. Quill smiled at his small judgment, followed by a small measure of hypocrisy, and then prayed for forgiveness for both, knowing it was already given.

  The blini, his small squash pancakes, were delightful, and for lunch he had leftover paté. It was, after all, tasty, and he was still a man of economy of action. Though he really would have to find a fishmonger who used more salt, upon reflection of Denouement’s ready identification of his lunch. The headlines spoke of violence by the desperate; a man with only a wool coat had forced his way into a heated building during last night’s cold snap, and when repelled violently had killed the inhabitants. Quill thought to himself firstly that he was glad he carried a sword with him, but he chided himself for blaming the wrong party. His second thought was of the appalling reality that the Orth itself provided the heat the city of Coldpass needed to thrive and yet there were huddled corpses frozen in place against the walls of warmer buildings. Even the necromantic pulses which emanated from Mount Barber couldn’t give motion to those bodies, so thoroughly frozen were they.

  Quill was still hungry after his breakfast, and he wanted something to perk himself up given the requisite patience regarding Denouement, so he took a longer route to the library and bought himself a small pastry from a shop. He had brought near-exact change, once again not one to carry more cash than was needed. Nor, upon reflection, to possess all that much money. Even his membership at the Manners Lounge was a result of his association with Parchment. The club, nominally his club, was a location for the rich, the building itself used an incredible amount of heat rather than being made of the thick chunks of stone which most of the buildings in Coldpass used as insulation. It had been conjured under the supervision of the Earth Guild by cutting-edge fire sorcerers as a single four-storey tower of steel.

  He adjusted the billboard, to read as a headline, “Today, special guest Glue von Barbery of Glus on the subject of air sorcery!” He made a cursory headcount of his volunteers, grudgingly including Leather who was late yet again; he really would have to talk to her about the importance of punctuality. That done, his own work not yet up to his ears, he headed down to the Earth Guild with the book he was lending Parchment in a small valise. He was clearly expected, directed straight down the hall to the guildmistress’ office. Unfortunately, it seemed he had timed his visit poorly. In the back of his mind, he recalled that Parchment was visiting Glue to learn about the inmate they were soon to be releasing, and given that Glue was lecturing later that day the visit would have to be in the morning. He was admitted, if he would like to wait, to the small office, but the secretary was nothing if not dutiful and kept him company while bringing his work in with him. One did not, after all, leave even a trusted guest alone with guild secrets. “I saw the headlines about the Earth Guild being on the cusp of a great discovery,” Quill ventured.

  The secretary made a face. “Someone was indiscreet. Tome wanted secrecy.” He made another face. “That will, please, go no further than this office. Since it happened, we’ve been trying to play it as an official press release. Zrit’isar,” Quill recognized the Draconic name of the dragon Tome, “wasn’t happy about it, but once the secret was out felt we may as well take the opportunity to play up to advancement and guidance provided by our expensive draconic patron.” The man veritably preened as he discussed this. He was, quite obviously, very proud of being part of an organization with such estimable ties. Dragon Tales, for all the silly name, boasted no such patronage, and Quill found himself making conversation by rote rather than enjoying himself. With the honest excuse that he had to get back to work, and the less honest excuse that he couldn’t conscience keeping Parchment’s secretary from his own work, Quill left in a bit of a hurry. It was only after he was nearly back to the library that he realized he had left not only the book he was going to lend to Parchment but his entire valise in her office. He could see it quite clearly in his mind’s eye, sitting just to the right of the comfortable, but not too comfortable, chair in front of her desk. He would have to collect it the next day.

  Glue arrived from Power of Engel’s, flushed with excitement to lecture on the subject of their special interest. Quill hoped enough people showed up to make Glue feel validated and a draw of patrons to Dragon Tales. Fortunately, his worries had been for naught. The lecture room was buzzing with conversation; evidently there was some hope that air sorcery might be the answer to the very headline that Quill had read that morning. He felt vindicated in updating the billboard to emphasize that Glue would be lecturing today. Quill took Glue aside briefly, and asked that they speak to Parchment if they were seeing her that night, so that he could retrieve his valise the next day. Glue smiled shyly and admitted they were, and agreed to make sure that Quill would once more be welcomed into the corridors of the Earth Guild.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Attaining the podium at the front of the room, Glue cleared their throat. The room did not quiet entirely, but the dull roar of a room of conversation gave way to hissing whispers. “Air sorcery, as I am sure you all know, is one of the four basic elemental spheres. Everyone is familiar with the stone sorcerers of the Earth Guild who fashion tunnels in minutes, who called forth the stone of the mountain in great quantity as insulation, who designed and effected the geothermal heating of Coldpass. Yet these are but base applications of elemental earth. As post-Loss understanding of magic improved, it was realized that there was a clue in Scripture, referencing the First People as made from clay. Earth sorcerers went from being rural tools and urban planners to celebrated healers, able to repair anything from a minor cut to a badly broken bone.

  “You may be asking yourself, ‘What is an air sorcerer doing telling us what we already know about earth sorcery? We are the proud and established home of the Earth Guild.’ Well, let me tell you, I am making sure you have the background to understand elemental air, which is diametrically opposed to earth, and yet very similar in its application. You see, elemental air is more than cutting winds and storms. With the sphere of air, one can purify blood poisoned by gangrene, but this is an incidental advance in the application of sorcery. What I specialize in, what you are here to hear, heh, about, is the application of air sorcery upon the mind.

  “As the broadsides and papers have made everyone aware, air sorcery can intrude upon the conscious thoughts of living creatures. In the Fireplains, Peaceshield, and elsewhere there is even a trend of intentionally learning just enough air sorcery to read the minds of animals, the better to communicate and be communicated directions. The more soft-hearted focus on fire sorcery to convey simple emotions, but this is not an act which I believe yields as much result for a given amount of effort. For even emotions are bound up in symbology, and those symbols are, of course, intellectual.” Glue went on at some length about the more conventional uses of air sorcery, including by not limited to silent communications, communication over short distances otherwise blocked, and ability to detect lies. They were building up to something, undoubtedly, and so Quill was surprised when they went on to say, “I will now take questions, before I address the issue most pressing in your minds!” There were a few rudimentary questions about the nature of air sorcery, one regarding ethics where Glue related it to the possession of a sharp knife, and then finally someone asked about the morning’s headline.

  “I am not unaware of this morning’s headline, and that the crowded state of this room can be attributed to it. ‘Can something be done?!’ you cry. I am here to tell you that yes, it can. It was in fact earlier today that Power of Engel’s Sanitarium for the Criminally Insane released, on a supervised and probationary basis, its first inmate today!” There was a collective gasp by the crowd, and Glue had to wait for the murmuring to quiet down before continuing with their speech. “I can already tell this is cause for concern to some of you. Well, let me assure you, there is no need for concern. For just as earth sorcery can heal the body, air sorcery can heal the mind. The root of all crime, and yes I do say all, is sickness in the mind. With a delicate touch, time, interviewing and understanding of the subject, air sorcery can take that sickness and sublimate it or shut it away behind doors that require intentional thought, thought the person in question would ideally consider unthinkable, to unlock. The inmate being released has one of the Sanitarium guards as a companion, but I look eagerly forward to him plying his trade once more, a model citizen of Coldpass!”

  Glue’s speech-presentation was the highlight of the day for Quill. The low came shortly after, and reminded him of the hazards of introducing people to Dragon Tales who weren’t the library regulars. A woman walked up to Quill at the hushed encouragement of a man Quill suspected he recognized, and asked him, “So… my… friend. Says you’re an Incarnate or some such. You believe the One God is in everybody. But I heard you’re a duelist. Does that mean you fight the Lord all the time? Isn’t that blasphemous?” Quill sighed and marshaled his reserves. It was a familiar pattern, he would start to explain the foundation necessary to explain the more refined concepts of the Incarnate faith, and meanwhile she would lose interest before he’d actually answered her question. But if he rebuked her… that went against his faith as a Wholist and as an Incarnate, but some days he just lacked the wherewithal to be patient with people about this kind of thing. He took some centering breaths and recited that he should love his neighbor. The woman who had approached him cocked her head like a dog trying to understand and said, “Hello? I asked you a question. Don’t you work here? It’s, like, your job to answer questions.”

  That was the last straw for any hopes of inner peace, for Quill, but outer peace still had hope. He began with her first statement, which any teacher would have recognized as a question. The One God was, in fact, within everyone, because He made Creation. But it was not the One God who Wholist Incarnism focused upon. It was the everyone. She tilted her head to the other side at this, and Quill restrained another sigh. Predictably, she lost interest somewhere along the cycle of fulfillment and suffering that he did, yes, contribute to by dueling, but that it wasn’t a blasphemy. He wondered if his obvious frustration with the topic had fueled her endurance. In the end, she wasn’t any more enlightened than she had started. Which, Quill supposed, meant he was no more enlightened than he had started.

  At the end of the day, Quill marshaled his volunteers, thanking them for their efforts, and shooed them from the building. The bookstore closed at the same time, and he waved to Chapter as she locked up her own side of Dragon Tales. She waved back, and then they walked in opposite directions towards their evenings. Quill went home, not having any plans with Glue nor Parchment. Nor, he thought ruefully, with Denouement, though it was a pleasant thought that tomorrow she had said she would have more questions. He allowed himself the happy hope of a less formal meeting with Denouement after she had obtained whatever tomes resided in that rocky mountain cavern.

  In his apartment, warm from the sun and the banked coals of his squash pancake breakfast, he slowly and precisely undressed, sorting clothing between that which would be worn the next day and that which would be put in an undignified mass to launder at next opportunity. Fortunately, in the bitter chill of the mountain pass Coldpass took its name from, one did not sweat overmuch, and so it was bathing more than laundry which was a regular necessity. Quill, a fastidious and perhaps proud man, of course preferred that he do both as often as his time and budget allowed. He settled in to meditate before going to sleep for the evening. In the morning he would blame his troubled dreams on the negative energy created by his impatience with the woman who, as a fellow human, was his neighbor.