Alina Working to Find Her Thesis Topic

Sitting in my office, I open up my oldest book to the Enhancement’s section. I could relax, sure. Jase had mentioned some kind of early thanksgiving party at his office. But I have been so focused on my bigger project of late, I’m getting behind on my thesis. Well, not behind, per se. Just not as far ahead as the schedule says I should be. I need to have at least my topic and sources selected by the end of the year if I’m going to finish and defend this thing in two years time. I know I want to focus on the history of Enhancements. Both in part to explain away why I have all these books on history treatises on my shelf. As I’m looking at the Enhancement section of the 1683 addition of the essentials of Mystic Aid, I realize I could swear I recognized the formulae, or at least its derivation. I highlight the three formulae and place a tab on the page. Where did I recognize it from?

Darren walks in. “Hey, Ali,” he says as he hops onto the couch, “How’re you doing?”

“I’m busy,” I reply, “What about you?” Spinning around, let my hand glide over my books. I didn’t recognize them from any Enhancement books, those methods were heavily streamlined in the Modernization and Popularization movements of the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century, when the study of the mystic became more available to the lower classes of society, less gatekept. The original, consumptive versions would only be in texts printed prior to the movements.

“Fine,” Darren answers, “But you know, Lauren’s up my ass about this whole ‘spying on the apprentices’ thing, like it isn’t the one of the best soap available nowadays, and the only one to actually understand how magic works. She says I got to tell Devon about it, but he’s on his whole ‘My normie boyfriend broke up with me so now I’m going to take all those emotions out on everyone else’ kick. You know?”

“No,” I tell him honestly. But I realize, wait a second, Darren is weirdly aware of everything everyone else is doing, maybe he knows something. “You remember me reading any pre-Em-and-Pee texts recently?”

“Besides that one? Don’t think so?’

Well, it was worth a shot, even if it didn’t work out. “And, you should just tell Lauren you went to Greater Maestro Stevens-Williamson and he approved you for limited usage of in-house scrying, then be a little more discreet about it.”

“I am discreet,” he objects.

I look judgingly at him. “You projected the first year study room on the break room wall during lunch hours.”

“We all deserve to know what they say about us behind our back,” Darren insists. But we both know he’s just making excuses for his own boredom. He likes being here and having the access, he doesn’t like the specific work that comes with it.

I give him a nod. “And you can. Discreetly.”

“The worst,” he complains. “By the way, you’re boytoy stopped by the lobby.”

“You have got to stop calling Jase that,” I complain.

Darren rolls his eyes hard enough to feel miles away. “Next you’re going to be complaining about me calling Nat your wife.”

“I do complain about that, regularly,” I correct my office mate, “Why is Jase here?”

“Was, he left while Lyle was telling Mickey about how he and Heather broke up because of her. I wasn’t about to interrupt that episode to tell you about High McGrumpypants.”

Understandable, I suppose. Having any number of reliable people here besides Nat is clearly beyond the scope of realism. “So, why WAS Jase here?” I ask, emphasizing the past tense so Darren gets to the point.

“Right. He said you were going to get out of here and show up to the party whether you liked it or not, even if he had to call in a favor,” then with a shrug, he adds, “Whatever that means.” He knows what it means, but he also knows it’s polite not to acknowledge the superior spying eyes lurking about.

“You couldn’t have told me that before some things started clicking into place?” I mutter, mostly to myself.

Darren smirks. “You know who I think have always been freakishly good at noticing dumb details of your life?” he asks. “Your boytoy and your wife. And you can ask the wifey about it any morning while making breakfast or coffee or whatever you two do in the comfort of your own home, but it seems like a party is as good a place as any to ask him about what weirdass books you’ve been reading.”

I let out a groan. “I hate you and hope you die,” I inform my fellow Magister and office mate.

He smiles. “You love me and would be lost without me,” he counters.

I close the book and grab my notes, putting them into my purse. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” I remind him.

“By the way,” Darren adds as I’m getting ready to leave, “You wouldn’t happen to know how Heather is feeling about the whole Lyle-Mickey-Heather situation? Because Lyle seems to think she doesn’t care much, but I don’t believe him when he says that, because it sounded to me like he was just trying to justify himself and comfort Mickey so she didn’t feel bad about Lyle choosing his friendship with her over his relationship with Heather.”

“No,” I say, adding, “And do be careful, I’ve seen what happens when Magister’s get too involved in the comings and goings of the Apprentices. It isn’t always pretty.” I can’t help but think back to this summer. Ike needs to get his crap together, I think, sighing aloud.

Darren laughs. “Don’t you worry, I would never interfere with the writing of my favorite show. Just think of this as warning that Heather might be more needy in the coming semester. And if you could give me any fun info after your meetings, it would be a good time all around.”

“Sorry, but anything that might come out while we chat would be confidential. And before you think about giving them a peek, I would remind you that I have been dealing with Therese for years, I can tell when someone’s watching,” I feel the need to remind him.

Darren shakes his head at me. “You’re the worst friend ever, you know that?” he jokingly complains.

“That would be a stronger complaint,” I reply, “If we were actually friends.”

Darren’s hand shoots up, slapping his chest. “Oof,” he jokes, “Hitting me with the ‘work colleagues’. Brutal.”

I let out a chuckle as I go to leave. “Don’t go through my stuff,” I tell him.

“Why would I want to do that?” he honestly replies, “Your stuff is super boring.” With a wave of his hand, I watch the wall of our office illuminate with an image of a lobby. One of the dorm halls. It seems like a group of seven of the first years are there, having some kind of heated argument. I recognize Sean, one of my advisees. No one else.

But I have a party to get to. “Tell me tomorrow if anyone dies,” I say, only half jokingly. This is a Magisterium Villa, after all. An accidental, or mostly accidental, death during an argument turned mystic is not rare. Though, in all fairness, it is more common for the deaths to happen during parties than arguments. During arguments, people tend to realize that what they are doing is causing damage to the world around them.

“Only if you tell me about who in Jase’s office tries to sleep with you, or your boytoy, or both of you at the same time.”

“You know,” I inform him as I step out the door, “There are days that I honestly wonder who I could have irritated so much to be sent you as punishment.” Darren starts to laugh as I shut the door behind me.

Rushing down the stairs and across the hall, I knock on Nat’s door. It opens, she’s grading some papers. “Hey, Nat,” I begin, “Care to take it on the road?”

She looks up. “What’s wrong?” she asks. Genuine concern on her face.

I shake my head. “Nothing, It’s just Jase’s office-”

“Right, the Thanksgiving party. I forgot about that. I’m honestly a little surprised you didn’t,” Nat realizes, interrupting me.

I nod. “So, I need a shower and to change into something slightly nicer.”

“Right, give me a second,” she says, gathering up her papers into her bag. “But I’m not letting you drive. Can’t focus on grading in a car, and you are far too slow a driver to deal with.”

I sigh. “That’s it, I must be in hell,” I joke.

She looks up at me. “Oh, you had to deal with Darren. He’s the only one of the people around here you like enough to get you that upset.”

“Other than you, of course,” I counter.

Nat smiles as she leaves her officemate and walks out the door. “We’re the League,” she says with a grin, “We would never be upset at each other.”

“You’re right,” I say, then add, “You know, Darren’s gotten in the habit of calling you my wife.”

“Upgraded from girlfriend to wife. Come next year, he’ll be saying I’m your soulmate,” Nat jokes as we head out to the car.

I shake my head with a smile. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no way he’d ever admit such a thing exists.” I get in the car and grip the seat for the drive home.

“Don’t worry,” Nat jokingly replies as she gets in the driver’s seat, “Our love will show him the truth.” As she laughs at her own joke, she starts the car and slams on the accelerator.

The trip back to our apartment is among the shortest yet. It also drenches my current clothes in sweat making the upcoming shower even more necessary. I’m halfway certain whatever minutes we saved in the drive are going to need to be taken up scrubbing in the shower. As we wait in the elevator, I remember I have a question to ask her. “Hey, Nat, by the by, any idea what I’ve been reading recently that might have pre-Em-and-Pee mystic formulae in it?”

Nat thinks for a moment as the elevator doors close. “I mean, when you got back from the PMC, didn’t Therese tell you to read that political treatise? What was it called, like ‘A Wanderer’s Guide to the Magisterium’ or something in that vein? That was from before the Modernization and Popularization movements, I think? I seem to recall you mentioning how stringent the old path to Prospectivehood was.”

I nod. She’s right, that would have been early enough. I’m not certain why Ter told me to read that book, it was weirdly philosophical and deeply historical in analysis of the Magisterium’s political factions of the time. Actually, it provides an interesting contrast to the current state of things, it was from the mid-eighteenth century, just prior to the beginning of the P&M movements. And a lot of the same trends that are happening now were happening back then. There might have been some indication of formula. I pull out my notes and scrawl across the open page, ‘Wanderers Guide’. Tomorrow, when I’m back in the office, I can pull that book from the desk safe and check to see if it is what the formulae reminded me of. The elevator doors open back up onto our floor. We head to our apartment.

“By the way,” Nat says as I head towards my room to decide what I’m going to wear to my boyfriend’s work-adjacent party, “I was wondering, are you doing alright?”

I open up my closet and start looking through different outfits. “I don’t know,” I reply, not bothering to put any effort into lying, “Ask me again over winter break.” I need to find an outfit that’s nice and comfortable enough for if there’s an afterparty, because there often is, but casual and appropriate enough for a work event. A hard line to balance on. I see maybe four reasonable possibilities.

“I can’t. I’m flying out to visit Ike,” Nat projects from the other room. “That’s why I’m asking now, instead.”

I pause. I’ll choose between the four after the shower. I set them on my bed and head out. As I pass Nat, grading papers on the coffee table, I give her a shrug. “I think as long as I don’t have a breakdown in the next month and I manage to get this topic sorted, I’ll be fine.”

Nat smiles a concerned smile. “I understand.” And I know she does. She can tell that the conditional is holding a lot more weight than I’d like people to realize.