Alex had to do something about this, and he had to do it fast. While a failure in performance on her part was acceptable - after all, he was a genius, he could teach her how to improve, and make up for their insufficiencies, a failure on his part was beyond forgiveness. And while he hadn’t quite accepted it yet, that was the eventuality that he was staring down the barrel of. Of course, in order to work together, they had to, well, work together. And the state of secrecy that they had was incompatible with that. Therefore, Alex needed to undo it. Not just to satisfy his own curiosities and fears, but to get them both back on the right track. A purely selfless endeavor.
Alexander’s greatest problem, in figuring out what, exactly, Elza was doing with the free time she was secreting away every night, was a logistical one. Sure, he’d been practicing Obscuration with Francesca, and that meant that he’d be able to follow her undetected, well… if he could follow her. Which he couldn’t. Being able to cast Obscuration didn’t mean that you could pierce the perceptive clouding of another person’s Obscuration. He’d worked out, in his experimentations with the spell, that Elza had let him follow her that first night, letting him, and him alone, perceive her relatively unobstructed. And that was a circumstance he was unlikely to replicate as long as she was hiding something from him.
Unfortunately for him, magic didn’t work in a way that helped him in the way he needed. Magic, as it existed, was an extension of the self, of the will - applying your influence to the world around you. That meant that you needed to extend your will, consciously, to other places in order to influence things at a distance. As such, tracking someone or something, at Alex’s level of magic, meant amplifying your senses in order to watch them. That was stymied, easily, by obscuration.
But he knew enough about the magic he didn’t yet know to figure that Julian, his Guardian, would have access to something a little stronger. He just had to get that knowledge out of him.
And so, Alexander, in the temporal space between classes and lunch that was one in the afternoon, and in the physical space between rooms that was the hallway of his apartment, walked up to the door of Julian’s room. He’d been prepping for this moment for a week, and one of those elements was figuring out Julian’s schedule. His Guardian didn’t do much actual Guardian-ing, and Alex’s contact with him, thus, was limited. But he knew that Julian spent a lot of time to himself, and every time Alex came back to his room between lunch and afternoon classes, Julian was there.
This was a sure bet.
Still, he felt nervous as he knocked, both at the prospect of Julian not being there and not answering, a truly embarrassing scenario, and at the idea of him being there and, well, answering.
“Julian?” Alex asked.
Julian’s voice, muffled by the door, but still clear despite its inherent softness, answered. “Come on in. The door’s unlocked.”
This was not, mid-sentence, true, but Alex could hear the door unlocking as Julian declared it so, making him, technically, not a liar.
Alex twisted the handle, and walked in.
Julian’s room was- well, Alex, in narrating his thoughts, could have said that it was nothing like what he expected, or that it was exactly what he expected, but to be truthful, he had no idea of what his Guardian was really like, and he knew it.
Julian’s room was much like Alex’s own, albeit with a few more square meters of space in it, the privilege afforded to Guardians. It was the same layout as his own - closet and desk on the left, bed on the right, a few bookshelves on the wall past the desk, and beyond it, a sliding glass door onto the balcony that doubled as a window. Alex had adorned the walls with posters, memorabilia he had requested from the Archives, advertisements and propaganda from previous campaigns of the True Church. But Julian’s walls were more personal. Thousands of index cards, shoved into the drywall with thumbtacks, and linked together in a way that surely made sense to Julian and no one else, covered the entirety of the wall behind and past Julian’s desk. This was clearly personal research into important things, and there was a clear transition where things switched from the left wall to the right. There, over the bed, were hundreds upon hundreds of official documents, propaganda posters (some of which Alex had been trying to get his hands on for years now and was convinced he just needed to word his requisition requests better to obtain), pieces of art, and postcards from the world that once was - again, all linked via yarn and twine to form some kind of network of ideas well beyond what Alexander could comprehend.
It all faded into background noise. After all, when given overriding complexity as an input, the human brain tended to filter it out, looking for deviations in the underlying pattern. And as Julian apologized for the mess, Alex began to pick something out from the pattern.
A face.
She wasn’t confined to any one space in the room. She showed up in the personal research section above Julian’s desk, and in more polished productions, in the propaganda works around his bed and bookshelves. She even showed up on his desk, in a number of photographs, immaculately framed, that stood proud, facing him. Several photo-frames were face-down on his desk, and Alex figured that she likely featured in those, too.
She was, in a word, beautiful. That didn’t begin to cover it, but it was the best that Alexander could do. Her raven-dark hair, thick and sharp, framed her face and her slim body, which held in it a clear confidence and power with the way she stood. Something beyond Alex’s conscious understanding framed her as inherently intimidating - though the fact that she was making eye contact with the camera in each and every photograph certainly contributed. Her facial features were… sharp. Her eyes felt like they could cut through Alex through the gap of years and replication.
Alex couldn’t help himself. “Who is that?”
Julian followed Alex’s eyes. “Ah.” His voice, cheerful in his initial greeting, fell. “That is, or, was, my Pair.”
Alex’s heart leapt in his throat. He didn’t want to cause any offense. “Sorry-“
“Eliza Arcadia Pahaliah V,” Julian said, ignoring his apology. “Or at least, she would have been, if she’d survived to graduate.” Julian cocked his head at Alex, a curious expression on his face. “Did you know that you don’t technically have a middle name until you’ve graduated?”
He waited for a response.
Alex blinked, and then, honestly, shook his head. “I hadn’t thought about it, sir.”
Julian smiled. “It’s an artifact of the days of there being three Angelic schools. While it, as far as I know, was never done, it was in theory possible for a student to transfer from one school to another, in which case the school in which they graduated would become their official middle name. In practice, or in the more limited space of our world today, we’re all middle-named “Arcadia”, but it’s a piece of trivia that is, I think, worth knowing.”
Perhaps any other person on the face of the planet would have disagreed, but this was the kind of nerdy specificity that Alex could appreciate. He nodded.
“I’m glad you understand,” Julian said. He sighed, wistfully - “She really was incredible, you know. Her performance grades didn’t reflect her potential, but, if she had lived, she could have changed the world.” He took a deep breath, collecting himself out of whatever emotional hole he’d fallen into. “But anyway - what did you require of me?”
That was awkward wording. Alex didn’t like the idea of imposing “requirements” on an Angel - an inherent superior to him. But he had a plan, and he had a way of carrying it out. Alex knew that he was awful at lying, and so, in order to try and get something out of his Guardian that wouldn’t be approved, he’d have to find a way of making it all seem perfectly reasonable. With Francesca’s help, and a bit of brainstorming, he’d come up with something, although now that he was about to put it into practice, it seemed stupid.
“Well,” Alex explained, pulling a bit of blush to his cheeks. That wasn’t too difficult - he was ashamed of lying, and the physical indicators of that were near-identical to those of being embarrassed about personal failure - which he also was feeling, albeit not in the way he was planning to describe. “I’m going through a lot right now.”
Julian nodded, frowning authoritatively. “Of course. The Pairing, and the concurrent change in lifestyle, is a major situational change. Continue.”
“Exactly,” Alex said. And here, he prepared the payload of lies he’d been sitting on, and prayed that Julian wasn’t paying close enough attention to see what he was doing. “I’ve been having a hard time keeping track of things, you know?” he said, not waiting for an acknowledgement from Julian. “I’ve been losing track of things - pencils, notebooks, all sorts of stuff. I’m kind of emotionally overwhelmed by it all, and I think it’s impacting my performance.” He hadn’t, of course. Alex kept perfect tabs on everything he, in theory, owned. He had a sacred responsibility to the things entrusted to him, and he’d be damned if he didn’t live up to those expectations. But he’d heard, from Francesca, that this was a common concern.
“Of course,” Julian said. His piercing eyes felt like they were looking through Alex, and he didn’t know if this meant that Julian was seeing more or less than Alex wanted him to. “That’s understandable - they’re switching from blockers to supplements now, I suspect.”
“What?” Alex asked.
“Hormones,” Julian said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.
“What?” Alex clarified.
“Oh.” Julian shrugged, sheepishly. “Natural human hormonal development is difficult to predict and even worse to direct, and it is too dangerous to subject the mind to the whims of biology - I’m sure you can agree.” In principle, Alex did. “And so, your hormone levels are strictly monitored and regulated in order to shape your development. It’s worked for generation upon generation, and it will work for yours.” Julian smiled, his thin skin stretching over the bones of his face. “But mental acuity dips somewhat due to the large-scale changes you’re going through, and I understand the frustration. I experienced a similar thing, to be entirely honest.”
Alex blinked. There was a lot of information coming at him, quickly. “You did?” he asked.
Julian smirked. “I cloaked it in confidence, so my fellow students didn’t see it. I was unstoppable, and I was completely aware of that fact, which helped me deal with the drop in performance. Even if I believed that others were theoretically capable of keeping up with me, they failed to do so, for whatever reason. That wasn’t a real problem, though.” He sighed happily. “I’ll have to tell you more about those days, when I figure out how to teach you lessons about them. I have full confidence that you’ll be able to get something out of it, if it’s presented optimally.”
This was all, probably, interesting, but it wasn’t what Alex needed.
He needed a tracking spell.
“But yeah,” Alex said. “I’ve been losing track of things.”
Julian leaned back in his chair, his long, slick hair cascading over its back, and down past his waist. “Yes - would a memorization exercise help? I have many.”
Alex shook his head, hopefully quickly enough to categorically dismiss the idea. “That’d help, but I think I’ll figure out my own memorization in time? I just need a stopgap - something to keep me from losing my notebooks while I adjust, y’know?”
Julian thought on this, rubbing his chin. “A brute force solution?”
Yes, Alex thought. That felt like exactly the right tree to be barking up. He couldn’t look overly enthusiastic, lest he look like a pill-chaser trying to get his doctor prescribing a medically-sanctioned high, but he had to chase this. “Just temporarily,” Alex said, and then, worrying about a lack of emphasis, he added, “But yeah.”
Julian pondered this. He spun his chair to his desk, and drummed his fingers on the surface in thought for a minute, before reaching a conclusion. “Alexander, you’re a smart student.”
That sounded like the kind of justification Alex was hoping for. Francesca had taught him that, when a Guardian was about to tell them something they shouldn’t know yet, they would attempt to justify it. Alex argued with her that they would, of course, successfully justify teaching their students things beyond their current magical curriculum, while she argued that they would be “justifying” decisions that were not inherently morally correct, but that was a difference in philosophy that was not materially significant in this moment.
“And,” Julian continued, “You should be able to handle this.” He then started rooting through the drawers of his desk, pulling out a few sheets of paper, and, alarmingly, a polished dagger with a ten centimeter long blade. He sliced the paper into squares smaller than Alex’s hand, and then, dragged the edge of the blade across his left palm.
“Sir?” Alex said. Julian bled , and carefully maneuvered his hand so that the spreading line of blood pooled without spilling. “Are you okay? And was the knife necessary?”
Julian laughed, dipping the tip of his knife in his blood. “No, not technically. I only needed the blood, but the drama is… enjoyable. Look closely, Alexander. I’m simplifying this for your sake, but it still relies on mechanisms that you are unfamiliar with.”
Alexander did as he was told, watching as Julian slowly, carefully, spun the blade around from a stabbing grip to one almost more like that of how you’d hold a pen, and began drawing on one of the squares of paper with his own blood. He drew out twisting helixes in the form of a circle, with arrows pointing inward trailing off of them, to a word in the center, written in plain English: “Live”.
Alex recognized this. He hadn’t seen one so simple before, but it was clearly of a category of magic deeply forbidden to him, something that wasn’t to be even experimented with until significantly later in his education. But, seeing as Julian was apparently seen to be valid in being an authority over his education, he supposed that just maybe, now was the time to learn how to use Living Runes. The precise nature of the concept hadn’t been mentioned in their classes, but Alex had seen it pop up in media, and had seen the Guardians of the classes that preceded him use them occasionally, even if he didn’t have much contact with them.
“Now,” Julian said, as he cleaned up the shape, and added a few bits of blood here and there to solidity the shape, “that isn’t the only Irinaen concept that functions in this form. “Exist” technically functions, as does “Persist”, but both of those do not have the biological implications of “Live”. While there are much more complex applications of this, right now, all I want you to do - and all you should do, in order to track an object - is to force the cells in your own blood to continue to live. You do know how that functions, correct?”
Alexander nodded. “They’re supplied with glucose and uh, circulate around and do their oxygen transportation thing, right?”
“Yes,” Julian said. “And you know what glucose looks and feels like?”
Alex hadn’t taken a half-dozen tests on the matter to have to answer “no”. “Of course.”
Julian smiled. “Then, “live”, with the necessary implications brought to it by your knowledge, should be enough of a command. You know,” he said, eyes losing focus on the paper, and looking off towards one of his bookshelves, “the pre-Twilight Jews seemed to understand the basic principles of runic magic, if not living runes. Have you ever heard the tale of the golem?”
Alex shook his head. “I mean, I’ve heard the word, sir.”
Julian’s smile felt like that of a curious cat playing with his prey. “In what context?”
And Alex was feeling far too outclassed to lie. “Secular fantasy fiction from the pre-Twilight period, sir.” He, Francesca, and Maxwell had found quite a few short story collections in their times in the Archives, and it introduced the three of them into quite a few concepts that they were fairly certain were dangerous to a heretical degree, but Francesca, followed shortly by Alexander, came to the conclusion that their incredibly holy education insulated them against whatever corruption the words of heretics could bring. They were… interesting, to say the least. Alex tried his best to not think about them too much, although his best wasn’t very strong against the inexorable force of natural curiosity.
Julian nodded, wearing an expression of not being disappointed, though also not being entirely satisfied. Alex was surprised at the lack of difficulty he had in reading Julian - something about his expressions seemed well-suited to Alex’s sensibilities, almost as if they were manufactured. Though Alex had thought, many times, that all expressions were manufactured, even if the producers did not think of them that way. “Good,” he said. “I still have to explain, but at least I don’t have to try and justify the idea - you understand that difficulty, don’t you?”
Alex did. He was busy trying to figure out what Julian meant by that, but trying to justify heretical narratives to Gabriel was always a minefield. That was one of the things he appreciated about Francesca. Even if a story he read was full of morally abhorrent ideas, she’d still, at least, listen to him, and engage with the ideas he had and the discussions he wanted. She’d usually enjoy it, even, to a degree that he wished he could admit, but never could. That was part of the way she expressed her superiority to him - she could admit loving what she loved. For the most part.
“Yes, sir. But how is it relevant?” Alex asked.
“Aesthetically, my Ward.” Julian paused dramatically after the last word, and then, burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Applying that title to you feels like it appoints me with authority beyond my station - even though it is literally my station. I cannot, in good conscience, use that word yet. But let me tell you a story about the “Golem”, Alexander.”
Alex, though he could tell that he was either to lean forward in interest or lean back in casual-ness, froze, amd watched Julian’s eyes carefully. He observed nothing. “Of course, sir,” he answered.
“Good!” Julian said. “Ancient Jewish lore speaks of the power of the word of God, and that rings true with our understanding of the Irinaean language of magic. In stories of Jewish magic, words had power - a concept, rendered in Hebrew, the language of God, could carry more significance than man gave it. In fantasy of Twilight-era times, particularly, an author by the name of Urusla K. LeGuin, command over things was signified by understanding how they were named. If you knew how to address a thing properly, you could, in essence, tell it what to do. Which is a similar concept to our Irinaean magic. The lore of the Golem involves the creation of a clay, artificial man, and placing either the Jewish conception of the name of God, or of the word “Truth” in its head, and that word imparting power into it. The concept of “speaking a thing into reality” fits well with how magic works in our time, doesn’t it?”
Alex couldn’t disagree, given his knowledge. “Yes. Where are you going with this?”
Julian forced air out through his nostrils in surprise more than “laughed”, but conceptually, it was still a “laugh”. “The idea,” he said, “is that a concept, a shard of human will, was imbued into a piece of paper, and that was enough to animate the “golem” which protected the Jews in the fifteen century. In honesty, it might have. The True Church has not yet conducted research into that particular incident. But to explain-“
Alex nodded, and the corners of Julian’s mouth turned up, seeing this acknowledgeable.
“Autonomy can be willed into existence, particularly, if you will a part of your self to continue, disconnected from your physical body. Regard this blood,” he said, gesturing towards the rune with the still blood-dripping knife. “It is still part of me. Were my head removed from my body, both my head and my body would still be part of the magically-coherent being known as Julian Arcadia Pahaliah V. And if you instruct yourself to live, at all costs, and you have a strong will to live, you will do so. There’s a lot of effort assumed there, but considering the magical prowess that has been seen in you,” Julian said, briefly flickering a copy of a text that summarized Alex’s achievements into being in luminous text in front of his face, “You can manifest that effort. Is my assumption incorrect?”
Alex shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Good.” He held the knife out, its tip towards Alexander. “Then do so.”
Alex stammered. He tried to put his thoughts into words, and failed miserably.
“Uh, sir? Guardian? Teacher? I, uh-“ Alex fumbled for the right term. “Um, how should I address you?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Julian said. “Just prick your finger and bleed, Alexander.”
Alex wanted to protest, but unlike Francesca, and he suspected, Elza, he just wasn’t built like that. The quivering tip of the dagger beckoned to him, and the tip of his pointer finger gravitated to it. It could not go anywhere else. And so, he met the point of destiny, and bled. His blood flowed freely, dripping onto the floor.
Julian lunged to catch Alex’s free-falling blood, and missed. “Sorry. If you will, direct it onto a free sheet of paper. You need to establish the idea of “sustain”, in a way that maintains itself. The image of the blood helix accomplishes this in a very simple way. While there are more optimal, idealized methods in modern teaching, the double-helix of blood was how it was initially discovered, and thus, I believe that exepriencing it thereby works through an understanding that other methods do not.”
Alex did his best. His mind flowed through the blood, which desperately wanted to pump, despite a lack of pressure and purpose, along a path. He gave it one. A route that twisted along itself, over and over again, looping back and again, until it reunited with its source. And the loop was closed. In that loop, the flow formed the word “Live”, the right angles curved just enough to not restrict the flow.
It dripped onto a blank sheet of paper, and Julian flipped the leather-wrapped handle of the dagger towards him. It was absurd that it was wrapped in leather, evidence of death and conflict that could only belong in a world of supreme conflict or in the world before the Twilight. And it was clearly made with the ease and lack of fear of the pre-Twilight years.
Alex took it by the handle, and in his own blood, drew out the double helix circle, and the word, carefully rendered, “Live”. When he finished the letters, it resonated in him, just like a hammer to his elbow, resonating deep within him. He yelped.
“Yeah,” Julian said, smiling. “You must be doing it right.”
Right or wrong, Alex felt like he was in two places at once. It was, frankly, absurd. So much of their magical education, at least when it came to expanding their limits rather than their understanding of the Irinaen language, was based on pushing out their limits of experience. Moving their minds so that they could influence, directly or thought analogy, things further beyond their perception. But this? This was doing something truly different, well beyond what Alex could conceive of. It was like he was existing in two places at once. As long as he dared carry out the magical incantation “live” in this detached portion of his body, it was like he was existing someplace other than his body. It was only a half a meter away, but-
Julian picked up the sheet of paper covered in Alex’s blood, walked over to the balcony, opened the sliding door, and threw it out over the edge.
Alex screamed.
“Sorry,” Julian said. “But if you really want to learn, diving in the deep end will teach you faster than how they’re going to teach you in-“ he looked up and away, thinking - “Two years? Maybe this is a bit much. But I believe in you, Alex. Are you okay?” he said, watching Alex writhe in his chair.
“Y-e-s,” he said through gritted teeth. His nerves were on fire. Alex’s only instruction, as far as he’d had, had been to maintain the Irinaean instruction of “LIVE” in that disembodied blood, and normally, doing something far beyond one’s limits would just result in the magical connection cutting out. But Julian tossing it out, carrying it further and further from Alex, gave him a fundamentally different situation. Alex responded to difficulty with strength, and this was damn near perfectly engineered to engage with his mind. The air resistance of the sheet of paper slowed it down, right as it was pushing against the limits of his mind, giving him time to reinforce his connection. And then, it dropped - gravity pulling it down and away. At this point, Alex was just as connected to it, through his frustration, as he was to his own body, and it swept him away with it.
There were, of course, safety mechanisms built in to his magic. He could have rejected the premise, in pure fear, and retreated into his own soul. But Julian was there, a force of authority that should be providing something far more solid than anything Alexander could produce.
Alex ran out of oxygen before he could muster a scream, and the paper holding his blood, holding the anchor that held his mind, fell down four stories before he could say a single word of protest to Julian. He squeaked, a noise made more out of what he didn’t have than what he did.
Breath flowed into his lungs, and considering that he didn’t make it, he had no idea what to do with it.
“How are you doing?” Julian said, the clear source of his ability to express himself.
“Okay,” Alex gasped.
“Good!” Julian said. “Hold onto that carefully., Do you get it, Alexander?”
He desperately, fearfully, grabbed onto his meager sense of self, as distant as it was, He could just retreat back into his familiar, physical self, but the part of him that had been separated, and thrown away, was still real. He could still feel it. And he did everything he could to keep feeling it. If it had been anyone else, he would have failed. But Alexander was a nerd, and he had studied the principles of how radios worked - in particular, how the Super-Hetero-Dyne radio, pinnacle of early 20th century technology, worked. Well, as best as he could understand it, which applied well to this, but didn’t ever quite seem to align with how the actual tech worked.
“I attune my self to my self,” he said.
Julian nodded. “And in doing so, you determine what your self is, and should be, strengthening your point of connection.”
As the paper fluttered down, the principle was made manifest. The further from Alexander’s body it grew, the more it relied on magic sourced from itself, and not himself - in other words, originating from his blood on the paper, rather than his body. Which was, as he was coming to realize, himself just as much as his own body.
“You understand where you are, correct?” Julian said more than asked.
It was unusual being in two distinct places at once, but Alex, slowly, nodded. “I can… feel… be… the paper?”
Julian smiled. “Yes. By maintaining a part of yourself, alive and external, you are creating a place in the world in which you exist, other than your own body. It’s a brute force way of extending the boundaries of your soul and self, but it is something you are going to have to know in… Oh, two or three years? I’m hoping two, it would be silly for the curriculum to not advance as these techniques become more common - Either way, if you make your notebooks part of you, you can’t ever really not be aware of where they are, correct?”
Alex tried desperately to gain control of his own body, and gave his best attempt at saying “Yes, sir.”
Julian, for his part, sensed Alex’s difficulty. “Ah,” he said. “Ending the effect is difficult, to be fair. Considering that the rune feels like part of yourself, your self-preservation instincts kick in naturally to protect the blood rune. Allow me to divest you of that.”
And in a flash, Alexander felt like he was on fire, non-existent, and then, mercifully, entirely back in Julian’s room.
“You’d have to get over it eventually,” Julian said. “So, I burned the paper. How does it feel to stop existing?”
Alex coughed. “Awful.”
“Yes,” Julian said, smiling. “I know.”