“Kaeso Asellio is a Marquis, which means he’s wealthier than the average citizen and gets invited to a great many parties, but holds little political sway. He only has half a dozen house guards in his employ, and the property we’re going to is the only dwelling he owns in the city. He is, to all appearances, an unremarkable man.”

Strix was giving us more background, and I was doing my best to remember it all.

“Of course, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, that appearance is inaccurate. Asellio’s family name gives him an in to the circles of high nobility, and his distance from court politics makes him an ideal go-between. The savvy aristocrat makes good use of his mediation. I’ve worked with him in the past.” She didn’t specify what kind of work.

I frowned. “Valeria wanted to be called by her title and first name. Why is this Marquis different?”

“Because he’s a Marquis, and descendant of a Lord. The family name denotes a proud lineage, but it is also a mark of privilege. Those who have earned their power will not take kindly to being reduced to family ties.” Her tone was warning, and I took extra care to memorize that detail.

“Got it. So why him first?” Duncan and Finn trailed behind us, and every so often I glanced back at them. They seemed to be adjusting about as well as I was.

Strix said, “Getting him to vouch for you will make getting access to various estates much easier. His retinue, small in number though it might be, will also be a helpful deterrent against any loyalists we encounter before our own army starts to build.

“He’s also a bit more whole than most of the ghosts in the city. He didn’t take the full rites, but he knew this was coming. He’s sympathetic to the cause.”

I nodded. “Alright. So what’s the plan, and what’s our story?”

“You are Valerian, a young warlock – magic user – with exceptional talent and high ambition. You’ve come from distant shores to Aurelion because our beloved emperor is neglecting his obligations, and wish to remind him of them. You have kept out of the public view until now because you were still honing your skills and assessing the situation, but now you are ready to act.”

I said, “That might be a hard sell, since there’s a whole kind of magic I’m not versed in, and I know almost nothing about the politics of the city.”

“Agreed. But we can spin it to our advantage. Valerian is fiery and driven, but she is also calm and calculating. Many have underestimated you in the past, taken your unassuming exterior for weakness or inadequacy, when in fact it is simply the style of one who does not need dramatic gestures to make their point. The backing of a few powerful figures will give weight to that idea; why would you gain such support so quickly if there wasn’t something of substance there? It will be a tricky game, but one I have full confidence in.”

I considered that, accepted it, and let Strix continue.

“We’re going to make our introductions to Asellio and see a bit of his estate and staff. Then, he’ll leave us to our rooms. I’ll teach you and Maia the basics of glamour, as much as I can in the span of a few hours. Asellio will invite us for brunch, and you’ll have an opportunity to practice your glamour as you, Asellio, and myself have a conversation determining the extent of his involvement in our little scheme, and what he gets out of it.

“I shall warn you now: Marquis Asellio is low nobility, but he is still noble. Never enter a noble’s domain unprepared, and never let your guard down among them. Every word, every gesture is part of the game. You will need to become trained in it, and quickly. Watch him carefully, and choose your words even more so. Just because he’s predisposed to our faction doesn’t mean this will be effortless.”

We approached Asellio’s estate, and Strix gave a final word of warning. “Maia, Felix, you won’t be expected to participate in this conversation unless prompted. As bodyguard, Maia is to remain by Valerian’s side at all times. Felix, you have a bit more freedom of movement, but don’t expect the staff to be very lucid.”

They both nodded, and we walked up the steps to the Marquis’s front door.

Strix reached out to knock it, then paused.

“Actually, you should probably do that. Knocking is easy for you, with your fleshy body.”

I almost detected a hint of humor in her tone, but chose to ignore it. I knocked on the door, and seconds later it creaked open. A plain-dressed ghost of a woman stood in the doorway, with a servile expression on her ethereal face.

“Guests?” the servant asked.

Strix nodded. “We’re expected. Tell Kaeso that Strix is here, and she’s brought a new arrival to the city.”

The servant nodded, eyes dull and unseeing, and led us inside to a small waiting room, tastefully decorated but covered in a truly potent layer of dust. “The Marquis will be with you in just a moment,” she assured us.

Strix was done expositing at us, so we spent the next minute in tense silence as we waited for the Marquis to show up. When he did, he was about as underwhelming as I’d been expecting. Which I suppose made him perfectly whelming.

“Ah, old friend, how are you? And who are these delightful visitors?” Asellio had a boring face and a sense of style that blended into the architecture, but his voice had a supplicating quality to it, as of someone used to placating the rich and powerful. “Oh, but forgive me, we haven’t been introduced. I am the Marquis of this humble estate, Kaeso of the house Asellio.” He gave a decent bow and smiled at us.

Strix dipped her head slightly, then gestured at each of us in turn. “This is a valued ally of mine, Valerian. She’s a warlock from distant shores, come here to help us with our sovereign situation. Those are her bodyguard, Maia of the house Bellicus, and her personal doctor, Felix of the house Ivmarus.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Valerian, and that of your staff. I am sure you will have a fascinating story to tell me, but I’m afraid I must tend to my estate. Please, make yourselves at home in the guest rooms. You’ll be joining me for brunch, I hope?”

I followed Strix’s lead and made a slight inclination of my head, hoping it came off as aloof rather than nervous. I smiled thinly, but not coldly, and stood there in a manner as least awkward as I could manage. To either side of me, I saw Maia scanning the room and Felix with his hands in his pockets.

Kaeso seemed to buy it, and Strix filled in for me verbally. “We’ll be delighted to do so, Marquis. Your hospitality is always appreciated.”

He offered some more meaningless pleasantries and then departed. The servant showed us to our rooms and we all crowded into one.

“Well,” Strix said, “that went decently. We don’t have much time, so let’s make this quick; time to start your training in glamour.”

Finn sat on a bed to watch us while Duncan and I arranged ourselves in front of Strix.

“Now, I can’t give you any example of glamour, owing to my distasteful state of unlife, but the principle is simple enough to convey. In fact, I believe you can explain the first half of it without my help. I shall ask you this: how does sorcery work?”

Duncan and I looked at each other, and I shrugged for her to go first. “Well, I guess I just reach inside myself for my anger and… shove it out.”

Strix nodded. “An accurate, if simple, description. The first path is about anger, and violence. It’s about harnessing the resonance of pain and applying it to your kindred energy. Anger, fury, hatred. Righteous indignation, fiery loathing, all these permutations of anger conjure the necessary resonance to empower your magic and unleash it.

“Sorcery is the easiest magic to learn because it has the most common emotional resonance and the simplest expression of power. Whether it is the swing of a sword or lightning from your fingertips, sorcery is really just pushed out from you in the general direction of whatever you want to torture.”

I ventured a guess. “So, glamour is different, then? More complex?”

She nodded. “Glamour is the art of deception. It is about reading your opponents and tricking their senses. With glamour, you need a bit more creativity, a bit more perception. Instead of pushing out your energy, you carefully direct it inward, altering your appearance or gaining an awareness of strong emotions near you. A useful tool for a spy.

“Obviously, glamour’s energy does not use anger. Have any ideas what it might be instead?”

It was a tricky question. “Um… malice? Guilt? Smugness?”

Strix smirked a little. “Not quite. Glamour uses cold. Callousness, detachment, the ability of a savvy politician to separate their emotions from their actions and words. Glamour uses the resonance of detachment, of separating yourself from your emotions and feelings and letting cold calculation guide your thoughts. Give it a try. Don’t worry if it doesn’t come immediately, I imagine it isn’t something as familiar as anger.”

I gave Duncan a skeptical glance, then flopped myself onto a bed and tried to do as Strix suggested. She was right; it wasn’t as easy as conjuring my anger. I was emotional. Strong feelings came naturally to me, and the instinct to act on them. Suppressing them was something I’d never had much luck with.

Still, I gave it a shot. I went through each emotion that was lingering in me, tasting each one. Anger at the council. Doubt in myself. Fear of failure. I found each subtle nuance of despair and fury and guilt, and I let them slip away from me. Breathing exercises helped, but it still took me many frustrated minutes before I could even approach that feeling of cold Strix had described.

The detachment wasn’t even the hard part, not really. I could do detached. I could do focus. But there was a frenetic energy under my skin that refused to calm down, refused to act coldly. I was a creature of impulse.

Every time I felt that cold serenity brush my skin, I lunged for it and it slipped away. It burned away at the slightest touch. It vexed me, but I wasn’t going to give up. I had to master this, just like I’d mastered sorcery.

So I tried something different: I stopped trying to let go, and instead brought all that emotion back inside me. I clung to my anger and fear and atavistic need and I embraced all of them. Slowly, carefully, individual sensations began to blur, and merge together into one overpowering feeling: determination.

Glamour would be mine. This noble would be mine. This city would be mine. I was the chosen one, and nothing could dare stand in my way. My anger was useful, but right then it served best refocused into determination and willpower. The fire in my veins started to burn cold, and all my concerns vanished.

I immersed myself in the cold, felt its crystalline clarity, and opened my eyes. Duncan was still sitting there. Finn had gotten bored of watching us. Strix monitored me closely, her face giving away nothing.

Almost nothing. I looked for details I never had before. The subtleties of her stance. The lines on her face. Tiny motions that meant nothing individually, but that together formed a profile. Many of them I’d been noticing instinctively, little details that told me when someone was happy or sad or furious. But, many of them weren’t so obvious. Tells, like a gambler looked for.

Strix didn’t have many, but she had a few. The light in her eyes. The stillness of her fingers. The mere item that she was watching me instead of watching both of us.

She was waiting for me to do something. Waiting for me to use my magic. She’d only told us to try and find detachment. She hadn’t said anything about using that power, about the intricacies of what glamour actually did. And yet, somehow, she expected me to know. Or… to figure it out.

I hated the idea of being tested by someone I barely knew. I’d spent far too many years being questioned and prodded and tested over and over again by Morgan and the chantry. I’d endured far too long being denied my place because there were other ‘potentials’.

But that hatred wasn’t useful, not in the moment. If I was to learn anything from my exile, it was that. Action born of anger, action without purpose, could only harm my aims. So I suffocated my irritation at Strix and started thinking through her test.

Sorcery was anger, transformed into magic, expressed forcefully. Glamour was detachment, transformed into magic, directed inward. Strix had said it was about altering one’s appearance and reading one’s enemies.

I closed my eyes again, and let my sense of self wander in search of a familiar friend: my anger. I felt that burning red font, always so close to the surface, always ready to become lightning at my fingertips. I reached deeper, through the well and out the other side, and I caught hold of the power within it; kindred magic.

That crackling, hungry energy burned red, but there was a coldness within it, too. Another well of power, one that I could only now begin to understand, begin to reach out to. I threw myself into that well, wrapped myself in its energy, and bent it to my will.

Cold fire coursed through my veins, and I shaped it into light. I opened my eyes, and looked at my hand, and imagined it cloaked in a velvet glove. With a pulse of cold energy, it took form.

There was something slimy about glamour. Something slithering. It felt like tendrils of mist curling around me. I could almost see them, almost feel their coldness in the air. I drew one of those tendrils towards Strix, and let it reach inside her in search of sensation.

I felt curiosity, and satisfaction, but both were at a distance, brought to me through a curtain of fog. These were Strix’s emotions, not mine. I could feel them. I could touch them. I could almost move them, change them. But that power eluded me, for the moment.

I drew back from Strix and let the cold magic fade. I didn’t feel as exhausted as I would after straining my sorcery, but there was still fatigue, just a more mental one.

Strix smiled. “Well done, Valerian. An excellent first outing. It would seem my assessment of your abilities was accurate.”

Duncan smiled at me, too. “Nice work, Gwyn.”

Out of curiosity, or perhaps something more, I reached for that cold well again and reached out towards Duncan. I felt… not entirely what I was expecting. There was disappointment, but it was internal, self-directed. And it was mixed with an odd shade of relief, as if her own failure somehow alleviated a fear.

Something must have showed on my face, because her own expression wavered and said, “Are you, um, still doing it?”

I relaxed my magic again and plastered something vaguely comforting onto my face. “Sorry, just exploring this new power. It’s very different from sorcery. I’m not entirely sure I have the hang of it yet.”

Duncan seemed to accept that, though Strix not so readily. She still wore a charming mask, but some of what I’d noticed before was still there. Curiosity, like she was watching a wild animal try to open a cage.

I moved to change the conversation. “So, Strix. What next? How does having this magic help me with Asellio?”

“Ah, glad you asked. As I said, he’s an easy sell, but there’s still a bit of risk. With glamour, you can tell when he’s unsure, when he’s doubtful, and change tactics to address his concerns. He’ll lie to your face and tell you his delight, but your magic will reveal the truth. Knowledge is a potent weapon when paired with a silver tongue.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “Right, well, I don’t a silver tongue is going to be as easy to unlock as glamour was. Unless that too is an area of kindred magic?”

“Sadly not. You’ll have to make do with your wits. You’ve done fine so far. Just keep up the brooding stranger aesthetic and it should be a breeze.”

The next hour or so was spent with Strix briefing me on little details I’d need to remember, the names of various Lords and the basic talking points of my argument. Then the door opened again, a servant ushered us out, and the meeting began.