There were three stacks on the library table, and they did not get along.
On the left sat the Fuller method: four standard textbooks, spines cracked white from three years of use, every one of them stamped PROPERTY OF MYTHOS ACADEMY on the inside cover. Every seven-circle mage on the continent had learned from some version of those books. They were clear, careful, and about as exciting as a tax form.
In the middle was the Astareus method, and it wasn't a book at all. It was a stack of loose pages in Rachel's handwriting, tied with blue ribbon. The originals couldn't leave the Creighton estate—Alastor had been very polite and very firm about that—so she'd spent the summer copying them out by hand. There was still a faint stain of ink on the side of her right index finger that she pretended not to notice.
On the right was a single crystal slate with a sticky note on its face.
Don't just read it. —C.
