Aster Brooks Books
patreon
Ch. 6: Unneeded Books
🕑 Added 2025-07-24 22:00:04 +0000 UTCThe reception hall of the Academy of Arcane Arts was deserted when Cass and Salos visited it the next day. A single, very bored-looking receptionist sat behind the reception counter, his head resting on his arms. He sat up when he noticed Cass, a customer service smile, slipping over his lips. “Is there something I can help you with today?”
Cass hurried up to the counter, digging around her Bag for the slip of paper she’d been handed ages ago. “I had an appointment with a mage for after the Festival?”
He nodded, waiting for her to get to her point.
“Unfortunately, my plans have changed,” Cass said. There was the slip; she set it on the counter. “I won’t be around after the Festival, so I was wondering if there was any way I could see them—or someone else, maybe—sooner?”
He picked up her slip and squinted at it, a frown on his lips. He shook his head. “The Mage Daith is out until the end of the Festival. Most of our professors are.”
That was more or less what she’d expected. Not what she’d hoped, but what she’d expected.
“Is there anyway you could check?” Cass asked anyway, well aware she was being an inconvenience. Him checking, assuming he even could, was not going to magic an expert out of the aether to talk to her.
But this was her last concrete lead on interrealm travel. If a mage of the Academy couldn’t help her, she would be back to hoping some relic of the Custodia would get her home. She had to try.
He didn’t quite roll his eyes. He made a show of flipping through the registry on the counter, shaking his head the entire way. “No. No one relevant until well after the Festival ends.”
Behind her, the reception’s doors swung open.
“Miss Cass?” a familiar voice called.
Pellen stood in the doorway, all her eyes on Cass. The little mage had her hood up, covering her dark hair and hiding many of her far many more eyes. Her wide mouth hung open in surprise.
“Pellen!” Cass smiled. “Oh, right, you work here.”
Pellen was an Academy Mage, after all.
“But shouldn’t you be on vacation, too?” Cass asked.
Pellen’s head dropped, all her eyes suddenly finding her shoes very interesting. “Ah. Well. You know how professors can be.” Pellen paused. “Or, maybe not?”
Cass shrugged. She hadn’t had a professor like that personally, but she’d heard horror stories from other departments, not that mage professors were necessarily the same as Earth college professors.
Pellen shifted awkwardly, her eyes darting for the stairs to the left of the reception desk.
“Oh, wait!” Cass snapped. She rummaged in her Bag, pulling out a collection of books. “I’ve been meaning to give these back to you.”
Pellen’s eyes widened as the books came pouring out onto the reception’s counter. They were all the books they’d collected in the catacombs, back when they’d gone exploring after their unfortunate fall. Cass had been trying to return them to the little mage when Cass got kidnapped by the Copper Crescent.
And then the mage’s eyes darkened. Pellen looked away. “Oh. You can keep them, actually.”
Cass raised an eyebrow. “What?”
She remembered the wonder in Pellen’s eyes when they’d run into the wall of books. The glee with which Pellen had pulled the books from their shelves, her piles growing beyond what her meager pockets could hold. The regret in her eyes as she considered which books to leave behind and the relief when Cass had offered to carry them for her.
There was no way Pellen had simply changed her mind about them.
“I don’t need them anymore.” The vast majority of her eyes were downcast. Two around the corner of her face looked longingly at the books. One flicked up to glance at Cass.
Cass, we have better things to do than—
“What do you mean?” Cass asked.
Pellen shook her head.
It’s not our business.
“You were so passionate about these,” Cass continued.
“I just don’t.”
See, simple enough, Salos said. Leave it alone, Cass.
Cass crossed her arms over her chest. The little mage all but trembled in front of her.
Salos wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t her business. It would be simple enough to respect Pellen’s obvious lie and move on. Perhaps that would even be the polite thing to do.
“Why not?” Cass asked instead.
Pellen tugged her hood down over her face. “I’m changing tracks. I’m becoming a combat mage.”
Cass cocked her head to one side. “What does that have to do with the books?”
“Combat mages don’t need to do a research project, they only need to prove mastery in a school of combat magic.”
Cass’s head didn’t straighten.
Pellen sighed. “I only needed those books for my research project.”
“Was it really just for school?” Cass’s frown deepened. She’s lying.
Salos snorted from Cass’s shoulder. Does it matter?
“Yes.” Pellen didn’t look up.
She came to my rescue!
That does not make these trivial matters your business, Salos said.
Cass huffed. “Then sell them.”
Pellen recoiled, shaking. “I-I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Cass shoved a book into the little mage’s hands.
Pellen’s fingers coiled around the tome. She held it tight to her body, like a child protecting a cherished toy from bullies even as she said, “I can’t.”
Cass sighed. There was more going on here. But Pellen wouldn’t look at her or the stack of books.
“Fine, I’ll hold on to the rest for now,” Cass said. “But let me know if you want them before the end of the Festival.”
“Thank you.” Pellen looked up at Cass from under the hood. “Are you leaving with Lady Alyx after the Festival?”
Cass nodded. “I’d be leaving soon, regardless. But, yeah, her dad gave us a more concrete time table.”
“I see,” Pellen said, her head bowing again. “But, um, what are you doing here?” She looked up, her eyes widening at Cass. A curious glimmer of hope flickered in their dark depths. “You couldn’t be here to hire a combat mage, could you?”
“Oh, no.” What would they need a combat mage for? With any luck, there would be no combat in her near future—which was why Alyx was getting their armor and weapons fixed, clearly.
“I had an appointment with Tamara Daith for after the Festival, but for obvious reasons, I was hoping to move up the appointment if possible.” Cass sighed and shot the receptionist behind her a baleful glance. “It seems like it won’t be possible.”
He shook his head, entirely unimpressed with her puppy dog eyes.
Cass shrugged again. She hadn’t expected him to be.
“Tamara Daith?” Pellen repeated.
Cass nodded. “Do you know them?”
Pellen nodded. “She is—was—my adviser.”
“No kidding? Any chance you could convince her to meet me?”
Pellen’s hands wound together, her fingers picking at her nails. “I don’t know. She doesn’t like people. Or sorcerers. Or spellswords. Or combat mages. Or people?”
“You said that already,” Cass said.
“That’s how much she doesn’t like people,” Pellen said. “She only takes public jobs through the guild as it is because she has to for membership.”
Was that it, then? Was she going to have to give up? And what? Just hope she stumbled on a Custodia base with answers?
“She doesn’t like taking public jobs?” Cass asked, more to buy time as she looked for another answer.
Maybe Pellen knew another mage with similar credentials. Who’d be willing to help on such short notice?
Pellen nodded. “Most of the professors don’t. But, they are required to have a certain number of consultations available every season or they lose priority. Others need it for the extra income public consultations bring into their labs. Lady Daith just wants the priority on new materials. She’s from a well respected noble house, so her lab is self funded.”
Cass hummed to herself in thought. She needed this appointment. Was there something from her adventures so far she could trade for an audience? “Any chance she’d be interested in the stuff we picked up in the Catacombs?”
Pellen shook her head. “The market will be flooded with that kind of thing. Even if she wanted it, she could buy up as much as she needed. It wouldn’t be enough to tempt her to see you on her vacation.”
Right. Every successful diver would have brought back arm loads of monster drops. “Not even the magic crystals?”
Pellen shook her head.
Did Cass have anything from Uvana? Most of the herbs were gone, and she doubted that would be interesting to a noblewoman mage, anyway.
The receptionist coughed pointedly.
Right. They were loitering in the man’s work space.
“Excuse us,” Cass said as she turned back to him and the pile of books she’d left on his counter.
The books.
These were Pellen’s, even if the little mage was refusing them right this moment, but Cass had collected her share of books too.
“You don’t need these because you aren’t doing research?” Cass confirmed.
Pellen nodded.
“And your professor, she is?” Cass asked.
Pellen nodded again.
“Would she be interested in books from another age?”
