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Regardless, this time she truly would not return. She tucked the note between two of his knuckles, then slipped the quill from his other hand. It was warm from his touch. She refused to allow herself to be distracted by that.

She really wanted to write “in your dreams” or “dream on,” but apparently her recklessness hadn’t quite exceeded her better sense and discretion. A threat would be better. She quickly wrote it and left, canceling the sleep spell behind her as she vanished into the Dream.

15

Stearanos jerked awake, fingers convulsing on empty air, the quill no longer in his hand. The thief was there.

Shoving himself upright—mentally cursing himself for succumbing yet again to the sleep enchantment despite the precautions he’d taken, ones that clearly had failed to work—he mustered his magic and gazed wildly about the library.

Correction: the thief had been and gone. Looking down at the note he’d ignominiously failed to finish as the other sorcerer’s magic overwhelmed him, he saw they’d written an answer. Incredulous, shrinkingly aware that his enemy had stood at his shoulder, had plucked the quill from his hand and used it as he slept like a babe in arms, he read their reply.

I could have killed you while you slept, Em. Don’t push me.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he muttered. “If you believe I’m so easy to kill, you’re not even half the sorcerer you think you are, you coward.”

Who was this sorcerer that they’d refused a direct challenge? They had the brass to repeatedly invade his library and steal his books. He had yet to decide on the significance of the novel they’d stolen, this time leaving nothing in its place, the message there unclear to the point of driving him to distraction. And yet they shied from confronting him directly. And then to hide behind their cowardice and taunt him!

He’d about had enough of this nonsense. Clenching his fists, he became aware of the folded note between the knuckles ofhis other hand. Another sly joke at his expense, that he’d been sleeping so hard, so vulnerable that they could have simply put a knife in his back as easily as the note between his fingers. Not left between the pages of a book this time, they’d given their reply directly.

He should throw it in the fire, but—who was he kidding?—the consuming desire to know what reply they’d composed ahead of time and come here to deliver would never let him destroy the missive unread.

My Dearest Em,

I’m concerned about your obsession with rabbits, and carrots, and gardeners. It seems rather puerile to create an extended analogy from a children’s tale. Some things are random, including most of life. I’m surprised a sorcerer of your advanced years doesn’t know that.

You may save your blustering and empty threats—rabbit stew, really?—as you clearly lack the power to stop me from taking whatever I wish. It’s your great, good luck that I only wish to borrow from your library. Such interesting books you have. I wonder what you’re up to with those piles on your desk.

Your Thief (a misnomer, as I only borrow… so far)

He read it again, torn between amusement and frustration.Rabbits, and carrots, and gardeners.Yes, he was apparently obsessed, to the point that he’d even dreamed—with extraordinary vividness—about a fanged bunny chewing up his books.

Andadvanced years?He snorted, wondering if this could be some young sorcerer testing their mettle against him. It wouldn’t be the first time in history. Young people tended toward overconfidence, and young sorcerers even more so. Usually their teachers and academies restrained them from such bold and foolishactions, often forcibly, careful to protect their expensive investments from getting themselves swatted by an irritated magic-worker out of their league.

Every once in a while, though, an especially clever kid evaded the fences erected to protect them and managed to find their target. The histories held several notable examples of those cautionary tales. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the juniors always lost—and usually died, unless the senior was in an exceptionally tolerant mood.

Still, this invader was no kid, of that much Stearanos was sure. The temerity matched that model, but not the thoroughness, the meticulous attention to covering their tracks. No, this person didn’t make mistakes and that spoke to the confidence of experience. His thief didn’t act out of bravado or impulse. Except…

His gaze went to the scribbled reply to his challenge. The notes they’d written previously displayed the perfect, even artful, lettering expected from any magic academy graduate.

Not every sorcerer’s greatest skill lay in runes or other inscribed spells, but any magic-worker worth their certification could employ at least rudimentary rune magic, and that required perfect handwriting. That was a disadvantage of using runes—unless you had them prepared ahead of time, they weren’t so useful in the heat of battle or other fast-moving attacks. Even if the sorcerer possessed a stone-cold character that enabled them to trace runes with fire raining around them or monsters tearing at their throat, there simply wasn’t flexibility to meet a changing attack. One couldn’t pivot fast enough. Still, runes were useful for other, less time-sensitive workings, and every graduate learned them.

In contrast, the reply the intruder had written on the spot showed signs of haste, the lettering not so meticulously rendered. It smacked of rare carelessness. His gaze drifted to the quill discarded to the side, askew from where they’d dropped it. Dared he hope?

If the thief had forgotten to erase their remanence from the quill, then it would hold valuable clues. He would not squander this perhaps singular opportunity. The dirt in the vial hadn’t told him anything, even after hours of alchemical manipulation, except that it was from a place he’d never been, which only increased his frustration.

Gathering his tools, he used a neutral set of glass forceps to lift the quill and deposit it on a sterile glass plate. He carried it to his work bench on the far side of the library, where he kept a second set of scrying instruments. Truly, he should use his best set, but those were in his arcanium and he didn’t want to take the time to climb to the tower room. Remanence faded naturally with time and his best information would come with the thief’s touch the freshest.

Calculating the surface area of the quill, its composition, the volume of the empty hollow within, Stearanos reached through the numbers, delicately applying his magic via the equations running through his mind. He might be weak at psychometry, but the wonderful thing about magic was that there were multiple ways to get at any given problem, and he was strong at math. Any time he could apply numbers and quantify his analysis, he could win. This saucy thief would find out who was pushing whom.

Numbers and equations seemed to sparkle through the air around him, though he knew they were visible only to him, an artifact of how he perceived his own magic. A sense formed in his mind, excitement building. Oh yes, they had indeed carelessly left their remanence on the quill.

No…shehad left her remanence there, a deeply feminine resonance to the magic. Startlingly powerful magic, too. So much so that it amazed him that she’d been able to erase her presence as much as she had.

Sorcerers of her level tended to leave pools of magic in theirwake, like bloody footprints in the snow. Her magic was as potent as his own, perhaps more so, since he doubted he could erase his trail as effectively, given the same circumstances. In truth, he’d never tried as sneaking about wasn’t his forte, not like it clearly was for her.

He concentrated on qualifying her exact magic, which was difficult to discern, occupying an entirely different realm from his. Almost as if she were the flip side of the coin, death to life, though there was no stink of necromancy to her. That would’ve been beyond unlikely as necromancy had been declared taboo centuries before and any child manifesting that flavor of magic had it burned out of them before it could take root.

Or they were killed, if it already had.