magicians must be able to work a magic of invisibility. It is well known that the king’s men have devices that can detect the presence of magic, therefore, it is not enough for a magician to discontinue working it.
“They do?” Camille asked.
Blaise shrugged. “They did. They are trying to do it again.”
Premise the second: In order to work this invisibility, a magician will require an enormous amount of magic.
Premise the third: The greatest source of magic is a sorrowful memory.
Problem! Memories fade over time, becoming less powerful and therefore less useful as a means for working magic.
Premise the fourth: An externally preserved memory is the strongest because it is not dulled by reliving it or attempting to master it. This preservation may be achieved by collecting the magician’s tears and working the magic commonly known as “Tempus Fugit.”
Chandon frowned. “I’ve never heard of it—what is ‘Time Flies’?”
“I can’t say. I’ve gone through all the books in my shop and have only seen it referred to, never explained. I worry it was once such an everyday working that no one bothered to write it down.”
Roland muttered something derisive under his breath.
Premise the fifth: When needed, the preserved memory is consumed in the form of the magicked tears. The memory of that sorrowful event would be so powerful that while the magician reexperienced it, he would be “there”—and therefore invisible “here.” In this way a magician would be veiled by the power of his own most terrifying memories. I propose, therefore, to name this new magic the Veil.
“I’ve also heard it called the ‘blur.’” Blaise looked up. His violet circles seemed to have darkened. For a moment, no one said anything.
“A magic of tears? But it is grotesque!” Roland said, appalled. “No magician would do such a thing!”
Not true, Camille thought. There was one who had.
In his luxurious rooms at Versailles, Séguin had tortured her with threats of what he would do to Sophie and Lazare in order to get the sorrow he needed from her. When she finally broke down and wept, he’d licked the tears from her cheek, claiming that the tears of a magician were too valuable to waste.
She could still feel the scrape of his teeth against her skin. “Did Séguin ever collect your tears, Chandon?”
“In a vial of the finest Venetian glass,” he replied with a shiver. “It was fitted with a fragment of cork, topped with silver. It was more terrifying than any tool of torture. When I first met Blaise, I told him that Séguin had bragged he’d figured out a way to make himself invisible. So you see,” he said to Roland, who stared disbelievingly at him, “it can be done.”
“But did you see him become invisible?” Roland demanded.
“I did,” Camille said. “The night of Aurélie’s birthday party, when you were so ill, Chandon. He was only half there, like smoke. No one else seemed to see him.” For a minute or two, Séguin had been more like a breath or smoke than a person made of flesh and bone. Could he have been working this magic? Was that why he had needed both her and Chandon’s sorrow—because he needed so much pain to fuel it?
“All the better to sneak around and work at our destruction,” Chandon said with a sigh. “But how?”
“Collect the tears in a vial, and you’re done, isn’t that what Monsieur Delouvet said?” Roland asked.
“Call me Blaise, s’il vous plaît.” The bookseller gave a faint sigh. “There is the matter of working the transformation via the … tempus fugit. And the small matter of the dangers. You see,” he said, flipping forward a few pages in the journal, “there are consequences to this magic.”
Château de Puymartin
February 5, 1680
After conducting a series of experiments, everything that I hypothesized two months ago has proved correct. Though horrifying, the magic of the veil of tears does work. There are, however, two more points I must add:
First point: By collecting his tears and the sorrow, a magician separates the memory from himself. Well and good! The sorrow’s power is contained elsewhere and no longer troubles the magician.
What if, she wondered, by working this veil of tears she could somehow hide her magic? From everyone?
“And now,” Blaise said, “what makes it such a dangerous magic.”
Second point: While this frees the magician from sorrow’s negative effects, each time he uses the veil the magician lives less and less in this world, retreating further and further into his memories. It is a grave danger I do not