were supposed to find out new information about familiars here, I'm not seeing it."
"None of the writings are by familiars," Piers said. "But you obviously know how to read. Who taught you? Or did you know how to read when you were born?"
Bevan shook his head. "We don't know human things when we're born. We know magic and the same basic survival stuff any shifter would know. Animal instincts, I guess you’d call it. Reading, I picked up alongside Helena when we were kids."
"I guess Chester must have done the same. I used to keep him in my pocket when my tutor was visiting." The memory stabbed me, just another reminder of Chester, and how weak and cute and embarrassing he was, and how I was always trying to hide him, while being just as weak myself and always wanting his friendship close. Chester could never hurt or betray me, even when I hurt him.
I wondered how different my life might have been if I'd had a familiar like Bevan, with an unflinching gaze lacking any fear.
But if familiars reflect their warlock, that was the first problem.
"Would you say literacy is not a priority among familiar-kind?” I asked.
"I would say most familiars rely on their memory more than books.”
"There may have been a time when familiars were discouraged from reading," I said. "Or, obviously, writing. We have no stories from their own perspective. If you want to control a population, keep them from reading and writing."
Bevan ran his fingers across his chin as he reached for a cup of coffee that was, in fact, empty. He plunked it back down with a groan. "I bet you're right. It's sort of a point of pride with familiars to keep all their spell knowledge in their heads, to whip out at a moment's notice. Wizards are the ones with their noses buried in a book. I figured it shows off our skill, but it could be something more..."
“Insidious?" I agreed. "The complete lack of biographical work, or writing of any kind, by familiars...it does suggest that they were suppressed, because it clearly isn’t that you can’t read and write.”
“I can believe it,” Bevan said. “I’ve been noticing lately that a lot of aspects of my life that I just accepted were actually holding me back.”
“Warlocks don’t think of familiars as men,” I said. “But you are. You were wasted serving one witch.”
In saying so, I was admitting a certain admiration for him. I thought Bevan would have been known in magical circles, if he were not a familiar.
Bevan bristled a little, and I thought he was likely to argue with me, but after a second, he said, with some regret, “You’re right.”
"Well, we have a theory here," I said. "And when you have a theory, you can start digging for supporting evidence."
“But we still have no idea where this all started.”
“Research is a slow process. I want to go through this one again." I started hunting for one of the oldest manuscripts in the piles. It was a travelogue written by a warlock whose familiar accompanied him throughout his journey in remote parts of the British Isles, including a sojourn to the land of the fae. It must have been one of the last solid accounts of such a journey before the faeries began to withdraw from the other realms for the next thousand years. Written in an archaic wizard tongue, it was no easy read.
"Oof. I can't puzzle out a word of that thing," Bevan said.
"I know just a little myself, but many of the words are cousins to magical tongues we still use."
We kept reading in silence for a while. I was aware that today was the day of the party and that Variel and I would soon face judgment of some kind. I didn't think I cared, but I was quite happy in the library trying to work out this puzzle, and Bevan wasn't bad company either.
I was trying not to notice that Bevan and I worked well together. I worried nothing good would come of that.
I had almost forgotten how it felt to work with someone you liked.
"I'm sure you've heard that story of how familiars started when a man fell in love with a shifter," Bevan said, glancing up from a 17th century history of familiars. "This book has a different take on that. It says that the first 'familiar' occurred when a man stole a bird shifter's cloak of feathers."
"Like the legends of selkies and the