“Well, a broom is no different from a sword! And dust? Why, it simply means I am surrounded by enemies!” Baldric puffed out his chest, and paraded about the room. “This is simply another chance for me to attain great glory in battle!”

I looked at Fay, letting Self-Composed drop. Clearly no amount of Wisdom and Intelligence was going to allow me to practice any magic while Baldric was prattling about. With a sigh, I sidled up next to her and bent down so I could whisper.

“I apologize, but I’m afraid that trying to visualize something now will lead to unfortunate circumstances for Baldric.” I thought I was being rather nice about, all things considered, since the only thing I could really think of was strangling Baldric.

“I understand." Fay sighed mockingly. "Visualization is hard for a novice.”

“You’re doing the thing.”

“The thing?”

“The thing where you call me a novice and insult my pride so I’ll rise to the bait and do whatever you want me to do anyway.” I knew the tricks! I’d seen many, many instructors and magical teachers and old monks use it. It was the oldest trick in the book.

“I promise, I’m not. In fact, all I can think of right now is strangling Baldric.”

I looked at Fay with new respect, as though she were a kindred soul. In the meantime, Baldric had ambled along up to an old, dusty broom and was examining it as though it were a shining jewel in the middle of the room. His eyes held reverence for it, and he grasped it with both hands.

“The most noble weapon of the humble servant!” He bowed low to Fay and to…me? I’d forgotten what that felt like, in all honesty. I didn’t miss the bowing and the scraping and the backstabbing, but in less than a day, I had begun to miss being respected.

“Ah….Yes indeed, Sir Baldric. Perhaps you can vanquish foes around us?” I tried to appeal to Baldric’s sense of pride and honor, since those had been useful buttons to push in the past. He looked at me, eyes gleaming, and with a harrumph, began to…sweep.

Admittedly, he did make sweeping look rather skillful. His movements were fluid, his posture was perfect, and he looked as though he was a man possessed. Every sweep gathered together more dust in an ever growing pile of gray and brown that Baldric periodically swept into a small dust-bag.

“At least he has his uses.” Fay was apparently about as entranced as I was. “I wouldn’t dare to guess why he decided to just…start sweeping. But Kel clearly wasn’t going to do it.”

Fay was right, even though I was loath to admit it. Kel was tuckered out, and the poor thing had already started to gently snore, her floppy ears covering her eyes to blot out the sun. She made a chirpy, squeaky vibration as she snored.

Chirrr-p-p-p-p

Chirrr-p-p-p-p

I scooped her up before Baldric inadvertently swept her into the trash, and deposited her into the breastpocket of my Butler outfit. Sweeping an entire floor had been far too much for her to do, clearly, so it was going to be necessary to start smaller.

“These little pellets of dust are no match for the mighty Broom of Baldric!” From across the hall, I could hear Baldric muttering to himself. His yellow silks were attracting a fair amount of the grime from his surroundings, but he seemed unfazed. “How dare you besmirch Lady Fay and Lord Aastor’s House! A pox upon you!”

“Fay?”

“Hmm?”

“Earlier, you told me not to overload Kel with instructions. Why?”

She didn’t answer for a few seconds, and looked thoughtful.

“I’m not well-versed in magic, Lady Fay. But you don’t need to explain like I’m a child.”

“Watch.”

Riri was still circling Fay’s arm, but as soon as she said the word, the pulsating circle of shadows surged outwards, towards Baldric. Well, better him than me I supposed. Just as I was wondering if planning a funeral was also part of the Butler’s job description, the shadows turned a corner in midair, and knocked over a small vase. As soon as they did so, they melted, falling from the air into the ground and then crawling back towards Fay.

“VILLAIN! CUR! I SHALL SET YOU STRAIGHT!” Baldric roared out as he saw the vase fall, and rushed to straighten it. Thankfully, it had been empty, but clearly, cleaning was a passion of Baldric’s. Not a character trait I would have assigned to him at first glance, but at least it made him useful.

“I watched.”

“Ah! But did ya see, boy? Any ol’ fool can watch, but only the smart one’s can actually see.”

Aastor had surreptitiously made his way into the hall as well, prompting Fay to bow deeply to him.

Come to think of it, I was bowing to him too. It was a deep one as well, almost ninety degrees. And I hadn’t even thought of it consciously this time: The move was done on pure reflex. More so-called perks of the Butler class, I guess? I’d also, almost subconsciously, activated Self-Composed again. I would probably have to face the backlash of the perk later, but I didn’t want to be around Aastor without having it active. The mental edge it gave me was just…too much of an advantage. In my mind, I saw a little timer that told me that I’d used the skill for an accumulated total of 7 minutes. So I was well shy of the one hour it would take for me to hit the debuff, and using it wouldn’t hurt.

As the cool wave of calm detachment and rationality washed over me, I did wonder if the accumulated time before the debuff hit would reset after a night’s sleep, or if it was drawing from an entirely different store of energy somehow. I’d have to run some experiments to find out. Perhaps later that night, before bed, I could try and play around with the debuff timer.

Also, the watching-seeing dichotomy was so…trite. Such a boring, cliche’d way of putting things. Obviously, Aastor wanted me to try to explain what I’d seen, and I was happy to do so. But somehow, it was just that little bit more annoying when he prefaced a simple task with old timey wisdom that was just an old platitude. In fairness, he hadn’t actually done that very much, at least in the brief period I’d been with him. It was more the dozens of other wizards and master magicians and old mentors I’d suffered under the tutelage of. So maybe I was just projecting, but goddamit, it was a bit of a pet peeve!

“You asked your Spark to knock the vase over? And it did whatever came most naturally.” I pointed to Riri, who had gone back to circling the length of Fay’s pale arm. “It’s a shadow creature, some kind of shapeshifter, so it just moved forward through the air and knocked the vase over.”

“Actually, I visualized the vase already being knocked over.” She peered at me suspiciously. “Have you…seen something like this before? One of the other planets, perhaps?”

“Not really. But all the clues were there.” I shrugged. It wasn’t hard to trace back the commands from the results. It was just going to be hard to figure out how to prevent others from doing it to me. I had a feeling that magical combat relied a lot on hiding your true intentions from someone else. And while I wasn’t planning on being involved in combat, it was an old habit, judging imaginary enemies before I’d even been introduced to them. “Riri shot out very quickly, he didn’t harm Baldric in any way, and he didn’t do anything flashy.”

“And what do ya gather from that, boy?” Aastor had that twinkle in his eye, and he even winked at Fay. He clearly thought he was being sneaky, tricking me into figuring out the magical systems of the planet on my own. Still, my considerable experience was letting me put the pieces together quickly.

“Lady Fay said Sparks are wild, magical creatures, Sir. So, they must abide by the same principles as other wild animals.”

Grimmar had been filled with wild animals, and even if I’d spent most of my time on the planet in a stupor, I’d had my fair share of encounters with beasts there. Not to mention the various odd sea-creatures of Asan-Oceam, who comprised the majority of life and lived in near hibernation until something attracted their attention. Most wild creatures, and especially magical ones, abided by certain rules.

“While I am unsure how Sparks live within their own world, if they have one, I suspect that they always attempt to conserve energy?”

“Aye, that’s right boy.” Aastor was stroking his chin as he continued. “Sparks have some kinda…inner battery. They don’t like wastin’ energy, so they move as little as they can. Lazy buggers, the lot.”

“As you saw, Blanc, Riri didn’t attempt to use wind to knock the vase over, or manipulate shadows to set it down, or even place it down gently. Riri did the simplest thing he could: He physically knocked the vase over.”

“Is that what Kel would have done too?”

Chirrr-p-p-p-p

Chirrr-p-p-p-p

“Maybe, but she would have to be awake to test that theory.” Fay sniffed a little. She was clearly unimpressed by Kel, which I felt was unfair. Kel’s never done magic before, lay off!

“If Sparks conserve energy to that degree, they must have some need for it, correct?”

“Doesn’t everyone? I don’t see ya runnin’ about the Manor and burnin’ energy just for the sake of it! Do I, boy?”

“Even so, there must be an evolutionary advantage. There must be something that we’re missing?”

“We? Excuse me, Blanc, I think you mean something you’re missing. I’m well acquainted with Spark theory.” Fay gave me a smug smile, and the camaraderie we’d been building up suddenly left my heart and was replaced with cold annoyance.

Okay, not really. But God, it was annoying. The only thing more frustrating than secretive, smug scholars was when they were immortal and had infinitely more knowledge than you could ever hope for. Instead of rising to the jibe, I decided to continue the earlier conversation.

“Fine. So for whatever reason, they conserve energy. If they’re wild animals, then they must also want to gather it? After all, Sir, they would want to add to their existing hoard, correct?”

“The second rule is that your Spark is always gathering energy from it’s surroundings. Like a battery sucking in magic from the air.” Fay jumped in before Aastor could. I underlined the mental note I’d made about Fay: She wasn’t just eager to show off her knowledge, but over-eager.

“Always?”

“Aye, even though she’s snorin’ like she might pop. She’s collectin’ magic.”

Chirrr-p-p-p-p

Chirrr-p-p-p-p

Huh. Well, work hard Kel! We’ll show Riri and Fay one day. Or maybe Fay and I can just be friends, and then we won’t have to.

So yeah, we’ll show them one day!

“The summary seems fairly simple: Sparks conserve Energy expeditiously, and they gather it continuously. Seemingly with no limit, is that right?”

Aastor nodded. And as he did, a thought struck me. A truly terrifying, bone chilling thought.

I didn’t know how old Fay was, and I didn’t know how long ago she’d first gotten Riri…but if Sparks were constantly sucking magic out of the air and storing it, that meant that Riri had been doing the same for years. Decades even, and possibly centuries. Which meant that the shadow curling around Fay’s arm was an ancient, magical creature of epic proportions…and it was kept in check solely by Fay’s Connection.

The Drakul was quite literally wearing a weapon of mass destruction as a fashion accessory while she walked about the Manor. No wonder the S.R.C. wanted to keep a registry of all Sparks. The more powerful these things got, the more dangerous the wielder was. I didn’t know the full extent of Riri’s power, but he clearly wasn’t a slouch, and I had no desire to test it when it was loose.

Gulping, I made eye contact with Fay, who had apparently read my thoughts. She smiled in that sweet, vampiric way that implied she could kill me whenever she wanted.

“So, do you perhaps have more thoughts on my killing intentions?”

“Ah…I apologize for my…indiscretions earlier, Lady Fay. I hope you can forgive me.”

Fay smiled imperiously, and inclined her head. She may have been playing along, or mocking me, but either way, the ancient Drakul somehow got more and more terrifying the more I learned about her.

“Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Aye, one more thing. Prolly tha most important one, really.” Aastor had a tone of casual carelessness that belied the importance of the information he was going to relay to me.

“Ah, yes Sir. And what would that be?”

“That we don’ have infinite energy."