"The whole point of me walking down every aisle in this enormous library was so we could just look things up later. I'm not saying don't do research now, but do you really need all these books stored in my brain?"

Katrin peeked over the mountain of books she'd stacked on a table in a reading room and sighed. "The short answer is yes. You want the long one?"

"No, as soon as I heard myself bitching about it I started thinking of reasons that you're right." What if I was low on mana, or we were in a rush, or we just didn't want to have to search for it? Getting assistance from the librarians to locate a bunch of likely research topics and proactively storing them in the memory palace made sense. I was still the teeniest bit nervous about the limitations - would I run out of space? Would it leak out into my brain somehow? But probably it was harmless.

I managed to just step backwards out of my body - I'd been practicing with turning divination on as part of going into my head and it seemed to be basically seamless now - and I loaded up the first pile. It took several trips to get them all, but when I was done I flipped through them and as far as I could tell they'd all retained the text. From past experience I knew that so long as I didn't leave them unattended in a memory they would remain accurate. I gave Katrin a thumbs-up without leaving my head, and piloted my body out of the library. This was part of the daily exercises I'd assigned myself, since I had some high priority plans that required me to be as smooth as possible at doing things from a third person perspective.

It was almost like playing a video game, walking along staring at the back of my own head. I had lunch plans with Talia Candecky - the artificer that had created the Mister Creepy rig that was now a permanent part of Errod's arm - and after that I was thinking about finally stopping by and talking to Professor Yanipliss about fate stuff. I wasn't sure if he'd be able to help me with my connection to... well, to the actual Calliope Smith, but it seemed silly not to ask especially since I could probably do it without telling him the whole situation.

Thinking about that just forced me to consider the problem with my name again of course. If human Callie was going to fuck off back to Earth and take my place soon I could probably just keep the name, but I didn't think this would be resolved right away and if we wanted her help with anything I would need to keep on her good side. Her less homicidal side. To do that I'd need to call her Calliope and call me... whatever else. Connie had taken it well when I re-named her, but that was a reference to a childhood thing and also I happened to think it was better to be given a new name than to give yourself one. I could ask Katrin and Errod to pick one out but that didn't feel right either. Probably I just wouldn't be satisfied no matter what.

I realized suddenly that my body had kept walking while I zoned out, and had even swerved to avoid a student that was clearly late for something. Thinking about how cool my pseudo-autopilot was sadly made me stumble to a halt, and then I had some difficulty getting going again - it was like when you thought too much about breathing or what you were doing with your hands when standing around and suddenly you couldn't figure out how to just be normal. I gave up and switched back to first person view so I wouldn't get in people's way standing there - it was for the best, I knew I would need mana if Talia was available to get started right away.

We met at a little cafe that surprisingly had no students loitering about - everyone looked like staff or visitors, based on the lack of university sashes that the students wore all the time. I hadn't bothered learning what the colors and decorations meant, but mentally had started thinking of them by Harry Potter house names - presumably they would be deeply insulted if they somehow found out and knew what a 'Hufflepuff' was.

"Calliope, dear!" Talia called from a table in the corner, her enormous frame impossible to miss. "I'm dying to know what you want, I have high hopes after that fascinating project with your friend's hand."

"Well to be fair," I said as I sat down, "nobody actually asked you to do that."

She laughed quite a bit harder than that comment had warranted, and then insisted I order some food before we got down to business. I got a dish that sounded to me like a pot pie or a pasty or something, and once the waiter had left I described what I was looking for. She listened and nodded along, then pulled out a pad of paper and began scribbling.

"Well that's very straightforward, dear. Below my level of talent, honestly, but I may humor you regardless. Devices that lower the mana requirements for a specific ability are very common, but as you guessed they do need to be custom made to reach maximum efficiency."

Telen had had one for his teleportation, and I was certain that was how Aestrid had kept her shields up somewhat the whole time we were traveling. "This would be for a very specific divination trick I do. There's more I'd like it to include but I haven't developed my Dumine enough yet and I don't think I will before I have to be back on the road again so I'm going to have to settle for whatever you'd be able to do now - if you have availability."

"Making them is trivial if you have the resources I do, it's more of a chore for the customer actually. You would need to spend some time wearing a device I've made and using the skill in question."

"That's fine, I don't have a lot else going on. Uh. One other question, though. Just a hypothetical. If someone had the ability to see enchantments, like curses or something, would you be able to make... I don't know, glasses maybe, that would let others see the same thing?"

We were interrupted by our food arriving, and I was happy to find that I had been basically right about what I'd ordered. There were a few foods Earth really had going for it, but overall the meals were a thousand times better in this world. More spices, more flavors, and - I suspected - plants and animals that had been magically engineered to be extra delicious.

"What you're describing is possible, of course. In fact, it can be made entirely with runes which means nearly anyone could make that sort of device with the proper education."

That reminded me that I wanted to learn more about runes, but I was sure that Talia was wrong when it came to what I really wanted - the professor had been clear that there were no spells for fate magic, and that would have to extend to runes as well or he would have mentioned it.

"What if you didn't want to use runes? For whatever reason. Maybe you want to see it exactly like someone else does, and that's hard to do right?"

She seemed to be considering as she chewed, and then jotted something else down on her notepad. "Well, yes, that can be done. Similar to the device you've asked for, I could get the person in question to use their ability and build the same functionality into an item. It would be more difficult; I don't have any custom tools for that particular type of thing and so I would need to do it slowly over multiple sessions. It would be far less expensive and take less time to just use runes, however."

"And once you'd made them, could you make more with just that first device? Or would you still need the person to stand around using their ability?"

"Ah, that's the downside to not using runes my dear. It's tricky to perfectly copy an existing magical device, and you typically introduce some minor flaws or accidentally increase the mana usage or... some other negative side effect. It can be done, of course, and any experienced artificer has practiced doing it - but it's not preferred."

How much would people pay for glasses that let them see fate lines? Would they be hard enough to copy that I would be the only source, and could make a fortune? Then again, once I got past my current lack of funds it wouldn't matter much since I already had that stipend from the contract with Erathik and some other easy ways to make money in a pinch. Plus I didn't really want people to know what I could do, though it could be a good thing to do eventually - if for no other reason than it would let Katrin or Errod find me if I was kidnapped again. I spent the rest of the meal listening to Talia complain about the price of lurto azine - which was some alchemical alloy - and describe an encounter with a client who had gotten one of her devices stuck somewhere it absolutely should not have been.

Her workshop was, unfortunately, outside of the university grounds and so I had to bid her farewell at the gates. She said there was a room that was used by students she could reserve for the afternoon, so we made plans to meet in front of the library in two hours. That left me with plenty of time to bite the bullet and see Professor Yanipliss about fate magic, though I wasn't sure what his office hours were. Did he teach classes? That's what professors did, right? But I hadn't made much of an attempt to learn how the university actually worked, so it was possible the whole thing was totally different than what I knew from... well, not experience. From television, I guess.

I found the door with YANIPLISS stenciled on it and knocked, and this time Harmid just yelled for me to come in rather than flailing about in excitement and knocking furniture over. Of course, once he saw it was me a little of that panic came back.

"I've aged ten years at least, you know. The very next day after we met I found some of the hair at my temples had gone white. Do you anticipate being involved in any murder attempts this time? I'm not judging, but I'd like some warning if I'll need to explain another body to the authorities."

"I'm magically sworn to not kill anyone this time actually, so I think you're in the clear. Thank you again for saving Errod, and for not keeping us there."

I sat down and grabbed a crystalized honey thing from the bowl he'd offered us last time. He took one as well, and we sat there staring at each other and chewing for a moment.

"So," he said, "did you read the book?"

"I've... skimmed it. I didn't grow up around magic, I was raised in a small and very sheltered village and the elders said talking about things like magic or other planes attracted monsters. So it was a bit... high level. But I'm working on it."

"What was the name of this village, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Arizona."

"Interesting. Well, I'm thrilled to hear you've at least attempted it, I suspect that's more than most of my students ever did. Are you just passing through, or did you... think of something you wanted to share with me?"

This was the tricky part, but I'd put a little thought into it. "Have you met Mossbloom? The Sahrger that they're doing some sort of testing on?"

"I have, in passing - though I didn't know her name."

"Well, she had taken the place of a little girl named Elba, who we were traveling with last time I was here. Right after leaving we took her back to her parents, which led to finding out about Mossbloom and capturing her."

"And how did you come to meet Elba?"

"We took a shortcut through Xeyul and I sort of kidnapped her and some other kids. Or, uh, reverse kidnapped. Rescued, I guess."

"Are these the ones with the monk?"

"The what now?"

It took a moment to sort out, but it seemed that the other kids had been brought from Twelve Towers where Cyne had deposited them to the university on the request of the professor that was holding on to Mossbloom. He was hoping to do some kind of tests on them as well, to learn more about how and why the Sahrger took children.

"Anyway, the point is that I happen to know from comments that Mossbloom and Elba made - and from reading what I have of your book - that the connection between them is made with fate magic. So. I just thought you should know."

"You're saying that there's an ongoing connection?"

"Yeah, it's used for scrying. The Sahrger make the human kids watch through their counterparts' eyes and report back. And I don't know a lot about when it's initially cast, or how, but it also transfers knowledge somehow and presumably does the thing that makes them look the same - or helps with it, maybe."

He nodded, and looked around while shuffling a few items as if trying to locate a specific book in the scattered piles. "That's certainly possible," he said, "though I'm surprised to hear it's a continuous connection. The Sahrger are an odd bunch. Not being human, they can't use wild magic or formal spellcasting - and yet they're known to make use of magic to do things that aren't innate skills. I'm not an expert, but I've read enough to know that they must have some way of using other magics. That may, in fact, be what they want human children for."

"Maybe. Yeah. I uh... I met a human that was taken when she was little and escaped, she didn't say a lot about it but she's very skilled in wild magic so... could be."

"Well, I'll reach out to Professor Gramod and see if I can force my way in. Is that... do you think that's all you have to teach me?"

He knew there was more. I could tell. He'd said as much last time we'd seen him, and he'd still let us go despite the dead guy. I was extremely tempted to tell him the rest - okay no, not the rest, but more than I had.

"I'm hoping you can cut that connection between the kids and the Sahrger without killing anyone - which, to my understanding, is how it's typically done. I may... have a fate-based spell connected to me too and would appreciate it being removed. But as far as me teaching you? I'll keep thinking, but... well, what were you hoping for?"

He sighed. "I don't know. What I want most is to learn some sort of spell that can use fate magic, but I don't think that exists. They say that runes and the corresponding language of spellcasting are inscribed on the walls of an enormous palace in Quebristun - that's the thirty-sixth plane, which only aligns with the material world every twelve hundred years - slightly longer than that, actually. If that's true, it could be that we would need to go there and inscribe new words and symbols for fate magic in order to make it usable - and nobody knows how to do that, just like they don't know how to make Dumineres or... or any number of other rare or forgotten magical feats."

"So wild magic is the only way to mess with fate?"

He once again dug around the office, this time pulling out a thick and well-worn tome. "No. No, probably not. Fate has been tied to magic items plenty of times, usually to create a destiny for it or to restrict who can use it, but it's possible that the ability to cast fate magic could itself be tied to an item. So far nobody has managed it as far as I know, but it should be possible. And then there's the fate gift from the Duminere, presuming that's what it really is."

"What do you mean?"

"I reference it in my book in chapter twelve if you want to read more later, but it's generally believed by scholars who study this sort of thing that the top right option on the fifth hex has something to do with fate magic. It requires probability magic and enchantment magic, which can combine to do something very similar to fate magic but on a limited scale. It also requires temporal magic, and when you combine temporal and probability magic you can greatly increase its power. Those who have been fortunate enough to have three gifts and have taken probability, temporal, and divination have also been able to see the future to some extent which would be a key component of fate magic."

I wasn't going to get a better opening than that to ask about my situation. "Has anyone been able to select four gifts? Ever? I know the answer is supposedly no, but it seems like the sort of thing there would at least be legends about."

"Oh, absolutely. The Clockmaker himself was said to have more than three, but there are all sorts of rumors about him so who knows. The Savior of Brynnklar, same deal - in fact some said he was the Clockmaker's secret heir, though that's ridiculous for several reasons. The first queen of Markonti, who more likely was using some very powerful artifacts. Some others. It's plausible - after all, those gifts must be there for a reason - but personally I think that it required something that hasn't been possible since the civilization that created the Dumineres was lost. Some special status, being part of the right family, maybe there used to be a way to go back in a second time... it could be anything."

"So for the people that were rumored to have more than three it wasn't some specific thing? They just got four or five or whatever the same way other people get one or two?"

"Off the top of my head, yes. Chosen by the gods, or something like that. Destined for greatness. Regardless, the point is that while that mysterious option quite likely has something to do with fate magic - or something similar to fate magic at a minimum - there's no way to be sure and certainly no way to find out more about it."

"I suppose it would be pretty powerful."

"That would depend on the level of control it offered you, but yes. As I believe we've discussed, the main drawback to fate magic is the lack of control over exactly what it does, and how it does it. If you had the ability to be certain it was working towards the correct goal it would be extremely powerful, enough to be worth mana requirements. Though... there might be things more powerful than just precision..."

Harmid flipped open the book he'd pulled out and gestured excitedly to what appeared to be a bulleted list, but it wasn't in a language I was familiar with. "If you could bypass the requirements of magic items, think of what you could do! There are powerful artifacts out there that can only be wielded by certain people. Weapons tend to show up in stories the most often, but there are also gateways to hidden vaults or other planes. An airship, high in the mountains near the Oracle - "

"Oh! We were going to go see the Oracle before we... uh... well, some more people attacked us."

He raised an eyebrow. "The same people that attacked you here?"

"Ah... no. I don't know if I'm supposed to say who, but also... fuck it, I don't actually care. It was the Behemoth, the guy from Halenvar?"

"Congratulations on being alive. Last time you'd said Lord Protector Hammersmith was looking for you, now you say the Behemoth attacked you - and that doesn't explain why a Knight of the Storm tried to murder you."

"A who of the what?"

"Who else wants you captured or killed?"

"Honestly it's mainly those guys. The kingdom of Erathik wants to talk to me but it's a misunderstanding. I probably shouldn't have volunteered that, but it doesn't matter. They know I'm here. But that's all... it's fine."

"Why would Halenvar send one of its best people to attack you, with the war going so badly? Rumors say General Telen is dead as well, so you would think... what are you involved in?"

"I should go."

"Please don't?"

"Nah, I've said too much already. Check out that thing with Mossbloom, see if it helps you at all. If you learn something, or figure out how to break the bond without killing them, I'll owe you one."

"Please."

"It's a bad idea."

"It sounds like you're no stranger to those. Please. This is my life's work. I let you leave before, and I'll let you leave again. I'll even promise to never write a single thing you tell me down - it's not about publishing a new book or being famous, I will gladly die in obscurity! But I know that there's something you're not telling me. You say you have a fate spell attached to you, you have half the continent out to capture or kill you, you're from some remote part of the world - that part at least makes sense, given your ambiguous ethnicity - and out of all the people who have knocked on my door you're the one that set off my device. There is something you know, something I've waited so long for. Please."

I wanted to just leave, but for some reason I opened my mouth instead. "If you tell anyone, they'll lock me in a room somewhere and you'll get nothing from it. I want you to promise to keep your mouth shut, but understand even if you want to break that promise it'll bite you in the ass."

"What a colorful expression. I swear to you, I'll tell no one, ever, without your permission. You said you were magically sworn to not kill anyone? I'll take a magical oath as well if you want."

"Ugh, no. No, I'm cranky enough with the fact I had to take one. I don't want to make anyone else do it. Look, I liked you right away - even before you healed Errod and covered for us with the guards. And at some point down the road I'm going to have to talk to someone about this, I mean I have some friends that know but... like, an actual responsible adult who already knows how to study strange shit would be good."

I was nervous, but I knew I had been looking for an excuse to do this since I came in. It was why I'd come to see him - sure, I had told myself I was going to just point him towards Mossbloom and give him the bare minimum information but that wasn't what I really wanted.

"I can see... threads. In the air. They connect people and things, and at first I wasn't certain but now I know that it's fate magic. I followed one to your door, that day."

He sat back, eyes wide. "Ah. I see. And do you know why you can see them?"

"Yes, but I'm not going to get into that. Suffice it to say it's not something anyone else can do - I can't teach it to you, and even if I told you how I gained the ability you couldn't possibly arrange for anyone else to get it. I absolutely won't discuss that part further, got it?"

"If you change your mind obviously let me know, but I won't press the issue. There's plenty more to discuss without that, though I won't lie - I'm disappointed. I would do anything to see what you see!"

Aw, fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound. I reached a hand out and beckoned to him, and after a moment he placed his hand in mine and I closed my eyes. We briefly flickered into a hotel hallway by mistake, but before he could get a good look I had dragged him through a door and back into his office. He leaned over to look at his body where it sat, eyes closed, behind the desk.

"What an odd sensation. This isn't something I've done before, though I've heard of it being used for... ah... entertainment purposes."

"Okay, hang on to your hat. Remember, one word about this and you never get to see it again."

He nodded, suddenly looking very serious, and then jumped back with a squawk when the lines appeared.

"They're beautiful! And... wait, there are so many coming from you... what are you involved in?"

"Long story, some of which I don't know. Anyway, I owed you and I'll probably need your help more in the next few years so... enjoy."

"Do you know what any of them are attached to at the far end?"

"Yeah. You met Errod, this one here goes to him. One also goes to his sister Katrin, plus they have one going between them. This one is made with a spell, it's the one I need to get rid of, and I know where it goes too. We won't be discussing details. The rest... I'm not sure. You can see several just kinda taper off into nothing so I guess they're not attached to anything."

"Oh, they are."

"Wait. How are you so sure if this is your first time seeing them? And what would they be attached to if they just end a few feet away?"

He smiled and held a finger up, then rummaged through the books again. "Ah, I can touch them. Good," he muttered, and flipped towards the back of one. His lips moved a little as he read something, then he nodded to himself and tossed the book aside. "Where was I? Right, so. Fate has often been referred to with language that implies it's a line or tether between two things - I assume you've read enough in my book to know that? Good. So in most cases fate has a person, place, or thing that is an anchor, and then another that it connects to in order to achieve the desired result. Let's start with something simple as an example.

"You've got a chair, let's say, and it's fated to be sat in by the future king. The chair would be the anchor point, and then it would reach out with one of these threads to find someone that's a likely candidate for becoming king and attach to them at the other end. It will need to guide that person to the chair, of course, and then keep manipulating events around them until they also get the crown. Clearly your view of these threads doesn't show that manipulation, just the connection itself - with so many threads attached to you, who knows what that would look like.

"Anyway, only the anchor point is unchangeable. If the chair picked someone, and that person was killed, the chair would simply pick another. Er, the fate magic I mean. Clearly it's not actually the chair picking anything. Meanwhile, if you burned the chair to ashes the fate line would be gone, utterly destroyed - so it matters which end is which. But everything we know says that the range is enormous and that an anchor point with no valid point to attach onto is constantly searching which implies these little stubs are already attached - they're fixed, pointing nice and straight at... well, that's the question.

"If I had to guess, I would say that you're tethered to something or someone on other planes. The threads that seem to vanish aren't actually ending, they're extending in a direction we can't perceive. Have you gone to another plane since you gained this sight? I know you mentioned Xeyul."

"No, that was before. I haven't been to any other planes since I started seeing the fate lines."

"Well then, that's an easy test. I'll talk to some people and arrange a short trip for us, and my guess is that the ones that are currently extending off through the walls will disappear a few feet from you just like these others do."

"That's a good idea and I appreciate the offer, but I'm forbidden from leaving the university grounds at the moment - and when I can, I'm probably going to be hurried off to a secure location by Hammersmith."

Professor Yanipliss looked pained. "Well, that ruins the next experiment I was about to suggest as well. Hmm. Maybe we could obtain permission from someone, if I can come up with an excuse that doesn't disclose your ability."

"Yeah, I don't think they're going to let me jaunt off to another plane."

"No, I assume not - even if it's a short trip - but the other thing we need is just physical distance. The university grounds, large though they are, won't be enough... but maybe if they'll let you out into the rest of the city it will work. Surely if we let guardsmen accompany us..."

"Wait, what's the experiment here?"

"Ah! Sorry, of course. We're going to get the university's finest map and a compass, and I'm going to tell you exactly where those other threads are pointing."

"Ah. Okay. Yeah, I had that thought after following that one to you but I didn't have the chance to try it. Oh wait. I just thought of a reason we can give them. You said the other kids I rescued are here? Well who doesn't like helping little kids, right? Get me the compass now, and I'll have a... friend, I guess... do something to it to make it look vaguely magical. We'll tell them only I can use it, but they'll think it's just the compass."

"That could work. Let me come up with the exact story, I would hate to feed Professor Gramod false information so I want to be careful."

We popped back out to the real world, and immediately Harmid reached over to the same book he had looked at while I had the fate lines up and flipped to the section he'd checked before.

"Just as I thought. I've never read this book, and I'm sure you haven't. So that was divination, spatial divination specifically given the clarity of it, and obviously thought magic. That accounts for three gifts - I know it wasn't wild magic - but it also means that if you somehow unlocked fate magic in a Duminere you would have needed to have... seven? That's not plausible, even if some of the wilder theories or stories turned out to be true the maximum would be six. So that's one theory ruled out. Don't worry, I'll keep my promise - but I can't help trying to think of what might have happened to you."

Despite the risk I was taking, I smiled. He was so excited, and it felt good to have some fresh eyes on it. I waited while he grabbed a compass for me and then headed out to freshen up before my meeting with Talia. I was in a great mood, which is probably why the universe decided to have my brain completely shatter a few hours later. I can't just have a nice day.