“Excuse me, but are you Merel?”
    The alchemist whipped around at the sound of a voice. It was masculine, decisively so, and a man with broad shoulders and curly brown hair, his arms crossed, was watching her.
    “Depends who’s asking,” she said with a dry and guarded tone. “It’s Miss Pedler if you are not my personal friend.”
    “Then Miss Pedler, I’m the night guard captain, and it seems to me that you are struggling with this trunk here. And I believe you’ve scuffed it a bit? I would hate to see you so put upon as to carry it up all these steps.”
    “Do you have a name?” asked Merel. She folded her arms and looked down at the trunk as if it was a naughty dog.
    “Ives.” He paused. “But if you are not my personal friend, Sir Ives.”
    “Thank you, Sir Ives. Are you from Lusignan?” She lowered herself onto a step, sitting carefully and extending her prosthetic so as not to chip the wood. “I shall be able to handle this myself, really. I just need a moment’s rest.” She breathed a moment, and glanced up at him. He was short for a man, but still taller than her, she noted. “How’d you know my name?”
    “I know my letters,” he said, gesturing to the small engraving on the edge above the locks. “And besides, night guards have a list of all admission to the gates.” He thought for a moment. “Did the name give it away? I have all but lost my accent in these years here.”
    “Ah.” She was going to figure out that gate, but she would not have it explained to her. She wanted to puzzle it out. “Yes, it was the name,” she said absently. Her thoughts were mostly on the door.
    “Are you sure you don’t want help with it?” he asked, and Merel sighed.
    “I wouldn’t mind the help.”
    “Very well, then.” He lifted it with ease, and she sighed and used her cane to rise to her feet. “I would think a wizard— you are a wizard, yes?”
    “I am.”
    “Well, wouldn’t you have a magic trunk? You could make it float.”
    “It takes a great deal of energy to do such things,” said Merel simply, “and resources. Would you rather I float my own personal trunk and make it easy to walk up the stairs once, or would you rather I use those very same tools to lift a collapsed wall or ceiling and save a life? A wizard must be selfless.”
    “I suppose.” Sir Ives paused and glanced at her. “Though there cannot be any shame in caring for yourself as you must. Miss Pedler, I am not sure it’s wise for you to so conserve it so.”
Merel admittedly was also broke. To do magic was also to spend money, and she did not wish to waste it on personal convenience when nearly everything at the present came from her personal stores. “I think it is what must be done at times,” said Merel simply as they walked up the stairs in the dark, illuminated by the sconces along the railings.
    “I can take you to the top of the tower if you’d like.” Sir Ives glanced over at Merel as she stopped to breathe a moment. “Really, it’s not a problem.”
    “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” said Merel, and the man laughed.
    “It would be more of an inconvenience to watch you struggle up the stairs all night.” He paused. “This is my job, you know. Or my job in part.”
    “Is it this boring?” asked Merel casually as he wound their way around the front palisade and entryway to a path hidden behind a column. She ran her hands along the dark rock. It was a terribly clever bit of design, she thought, but she refrained from saying it. Hidden doors made her wonder how much magic was hidden from view, too.
    “Oh, trust me, this is not boring.” Ives smiled. “I think this is far more excitement for most of us than we’re used to. Imagine, two new wizards moving in during the very same week after the lot of us were stuck with old Ullic for all these years. Personally, I think this is more of an uproar than I’ve seen in a long while.”
    The halls, as he opened the door, were decidedly cold, dark, and empty. The notion that this was what an uproar was tickled Merel. Dour though she could be, this was far from an uproar even to her. “I see,” she said, her voice echoing on the stones. “Well, I doubt I’ll be much of a thrill for people of your…sort of stature and repute.”
    “I don’t see why not! Why, the other wizard is quite exciting. Very naturally so, he is.”
    “I’m sure,” said Merel, “but I think you misunderstand me. I don’t mean to say that wizards are boring to you. I mean to say that I am boring.”
    “Oh.” Ives paused, opening another door down a corridor. “I think that is relative. I’m sure you’d find my trainings and regiments and drills very boring, and I would probably find whatever it is you do, boring. But it’s probably exciting to someone.”
    “My work is exciting,” she clarified. “But I am not. I regret to inform you that the master wizard of the court has hired a schoolmarm for his next assistant.”
    “Hired?” Ives raised a brow, glancing back over his shoulder. “I thought you were invited to the service of him.”
    “Is that not the same?”
    “I was not under the impression that this was a paid position. Ullic is a very cheap man.”
    For a moment, Merel was tempted to ask him, even now as they neared the very to end of their journey to the tower, to turn around and help her haul everything back to the city, and that she’d find a carriage and leave post-haste. She needed money. She really did. There was no way she’d do this for free. But she had come all this way, and she at least needed to consider that she might’ve had an opportunity to make some money outside of her position. “Ah,” she replied as they began the steps up to the tower. “I see then.”
    “Miss Pedler, were you expecting a more lucrative job? I do hate to see a lady disappointed.”
    “I expected to be able to cover some expenses.” Merel pursed her lips. “Not make a profit.”
    “I imagine that there is some intent, of course, to maintain things like boarding costs without any fee to you. I wouldn’t worry much for that.”
    “Plenty of other things cost money, Sir Ives.” Merel scowled. This man did not seem terribly sharp in that regard. If Merel had to guess, she would say that he was born into money and had very little idea what an expense just living could be. He seemed…highborn, if she had to guess. Merel anticipated sending back some money to her family and her future in-laws, who had funded her education in the first place, so the entire prospect of the situation being fully unpaid made her both unsatisfied, and uneasy.
    About forty feet up the tower was the first window out over the walls, and Merel stopped to glance out. Beneath them, the city looked like an anthill of lanterns, and she warmed a bit at the idea of so many people busying about in their lives that night. It made her feel a bit more assured. Ives halted a few steps after, looking down at her expectantly. “A breather?”
    “Just taking it in,” she said, before catching up to him with a light limp. Stairs, she thought unhappily, were always difficult for her. Putting weight on her prosthetic was somewhat uncomfortable and canes never had enough purchase on the stone steps to fully lean on, so she never took them easily. While her old place at Lodgrey had steps, they were spaced out, and more often than not, made from wood, which did not slip so easily. This might make for an issue living here.
    “Have you not been to Bluestone before? It is the center of all Moras, surely you’ve at least spent time here.”
    “No.” She stopped at a landing to rest her leg. “Never.”
    “Really?” He furrowed his brow and set down the trunk for a moment, stretching his shoulders. “I thought all of you did things like sail to distant lands and go on journeys all sorts of the time.”
    “Maybe some of us do,” said Merel with some hesitation. “But more of us are simply teachers and advisors and researchers than wanderers.”
    This clearly had not occurred to Sir Ives, who furrowed his brow as if he was concentrating very intently on the thought of a wizard who was not a wanderer or nomadic at times, and acceptance came over his face after a moment. “Come, we’re near to the top. Quite close, Miss Pedler.”
    “Thank all good things for that.” She sighed in relief as the top of the landing came into sight. “I would pay you some recompense for your trouble if I had it, sir, but unfortunately—“
    “Fret not. This really is not any trouble for me.” He set down the trunk on the top step, which was narrow. The door at the top was unassuming and small, from stained and old, worn, wood with iron fixtures. It might have been a door at an old inn or bar, or perhaps one of the keeps further north along the coast, for all of its wear and tear and plain facade. “I rather like the climb. It takes me to a part of the castle I seldom see. The change is welcome.”
    “I admire your adventurous spirit,” said Merel, already fatigued of both the journey and the conversation. She found Ives to be very— well, ordinary, in a good way, but not in a way that made for much excitement after polite introductions.
    “Guard duty is boring without it,” he said. “Well, I assume this is to be good night, though I will probably see you again?”
    “Oh, certainly.” She smiled, dry and polite. “Good evening. And thank you, very much.”
    “Of course. Good evening!” He waved and began the descent back down the stairs, shadows lengthening in the torchlight with each step.
    Merel raised her hand to her amber pendant, the soft pump of her heartbeat delicately stirring against her fingertips. She was nervous. She knew that. But it was not as if she had a choice now. She rapped her knuckles against the door, and found by the third rap, it had been opened.
    A man with perfect black hair to his waist, deep wrinkles, and thick spectacles, perhaps a head taller than Merel, had opened it, his worn but sturdy hand holding the iron knob securely. He looked to be in good health and very sturdy for a man his age, and she would have put him somewhere in his mid sixties. No speckles about his skin, a healthy complexion— all noticeable, but for one thing: the last time that she had seen Ullic, years prior, his eyes had been clear. Now, they were clouded and milky, unfocused. “Merel Pedler,” he said, without so much as a hello or good evening.
    “Mage Ullic,” she said, bowing her head. “Thank you for your invitation.”
    “Hmph,” said the man, a warm and low tone as he held the door open for her. Merel hauled in her trunk and dropped it with a thunk the second it was beyond the door’s span, then looked around.
    The tower was large on the inside. She supposed there were a few charms and seals that expanded the interior compared to the exterior, a common practice. Hanging from the ceiling were small blue flickers of flame, burning upside down from their wicks in a makeshift clock— at least, Merel assumed that due to the measured gaps spaced along each wick. It was only half lit, since she could imagine that to Ullic, light was of little help. On every surface were trays of ingredients or implements, bowls or jars or bottles or jugs, all untidily labeled,  and most walls were covered in fabric or brocades of all variety, though most were frayed or faded. Books heaped beneath every table, and there was only a singular chair about. A half dozen doors were visible on an upper mezzanine that overlooked the center of the round hub of the tower, and dangling from the carved balustrades were a dozen different kinds of trawling vines, only some of which Merel knew. Vaulted ceilings far above appeared to be lit from within with stained glass as delicate as dragonfly wings, reflecting back in a mosaic of the blue lights. The stone was very old and very well trod, the smooth interior walls worn and ancient. She could imagine, many generations ago, that this was once a wizard’s heart. It did not seem so far fetched to her.
    “Your room is the one beside the ellen-danica.” Ullic trudged through the carpet of papers, or pots, or boxes, as if his feet had charted a path and he was navigating it by stubbed toes instead of by sight. “Kiarn’s is two down, he’ll show you the way around if you need it.” There was almost a defeated undertone to the old wizard’s voice, and Merel felt a twinge of sympathy for the situation he must have been in.
    “I’ll find my own way, sir,” she said calmly, picking her trunk back up and starting towards the stairs. “How early should I rise in the morning?”
    Ullic waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t care.”
    It was clear, thought Merel, that he did not wish to be bothered. She sighed and thunked her way up the stairs. What was an ellen-danica? She pursed her lips and decided which plants she thought might have been— well, that one was a philodendron, that was runner bean, and that was arrowhead. So she supposed the door with stenciled letters worn off and unintelligible, and brass fixtures, had to have the ellen-danica beside it. It looked like a variant house ivy, she thought, and it was very pretentious of Ullic, in true wizard fashion, to identify it so specifically. But she shoved her trunk inside, barely glancing out the window. There was a window, then, she thought, bemused. She was tired, but not so tired that she would sleep in traveling clothes. Sweaty and reeking, she thought, throwing off the jacket and overcoat, and smelling of the outdoors. Down to her chemise and shift, she sighed and looked around.
    It was not so large, she thought in relief. There had been a nascent concern when she had walked in that she would have too few possessions to really feel lived in and comfortable, in the same way that the suite she had been given upon tenure at Lodgrey Academy had been too big and too sparse to feel homey. This was smaller, and it relieved her a bit to notice it. There was a bed, perhaps large enough for two to sleep upon, or one if she really felt up to stretching, beneath the latched muntin window, half settled upon stone. The bed was flanked by built-in shelves and nooks of the same stone as the rest of the tower. The bed had only white linens upon it, no quilt or blanket, and a little test bounce told her it was a mattress atop a knotted rope base, which meant there was no moving it even if she wanted to. One chair sat at a humble desk, with a single simple lantern, and there was a spot faded into the floor where she assumed someone had once set a trunk of clothing. Merel decided to scoot her own there in solidarity. Despite having only the single window, the room was flooded with silver moonlight, little particles of dust dancing in the moonbeams. And dusty it was! She ran her finger along the footboard and found that it left a residue on the pads of her finger. She’d have to take care of that another time, she thought unhappily. But now was a time for rest. She took off her prosthetic leg, set her cane aside, and laid upon the bed. Merel did not stir for many hours.