#Drevis I think runs into a variation on the 'can God invent a problem he can't solve' thing more often than most

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

6) illusion, Kharish

“Are you very sure,” says Drevis, leaning across the circulation desk with his neck craned like he might be able to see the underside of it if he tries hard enough, “it isn’t here?”

Urag clears his throat and pointedly slides a stack of returns into his elbow. “I am aware of every book in the Arcanaeum. Yours is not among them.”

“Where do you last remember having it?” Kharish offers as she leans around him for the books. There’s no soot this time, but there’s an unfortunate spot of dry, cracking leather on the bottom corner of the top cover, suspiciously thumbprint-shaped.

Drevis eyes the row of spines, forlorn. “That’s the trouble, of course. I don’t remember having it.”

“You mean you don’t know where?” She opens the first to note the date of return on its card.

“No,” he says, “I mean I don’t remember having it.” He puts his chin into one spindly hand and ruffles the other through his hair, which he may have been doing all day, from the way it’s standing on end in angular tufts. “The apprentice-level test next Fredas, it’s meant to be on countering simple illusions. I always start with something small, something that you don’t recall if it’s not immediately in your field of vision, yes? I believe I’d already shrouded it, but I must have reapplied it, for—well, I can’t remember now, you see.”

Urag looks at him for a long moment. He takes off his glasses, folding them deliberately, and clears his throat. “Was it one of mine?”

“No, no! It was—it’s the one I always use. I think.”

Kharish sets the newly checked-in book on the shelving cart and opens the next, eyebrows raised. (This one has a note tucked into the front that she guesses from the first line was not intended to have been left as a bookmark. She sets the note under the counter, face-down, for whenever a mortified novice inevitably comes running back in whispery panic.) “Then you know which one it is, at least?”

With a particularly haggard set to his mouth, Drevis says, “I do not.”

She stops, halfway to the third. “…then how—”

Urag, who has not put his glasses back on, says to some distant point on the far wall, “Where did you… ensorcel it.”

“I have reason to trust it was likely in my office rather than the classroom,” he holds up a finger, crooked with thought. “I was working on—” His mouth moves soundlessly for a moment; his eyebrows shoot upwards in surprise. “I was working on something else. What was I working on?” Without waiting for an answer, he bolts for the door.

Baffled, Kharish turns to Urag as he unfolds his glasses. “Are you really aware of every book that passes through here, or was that to make a point?”

He pauses, giving her a sideways look. “I have spent years honing a very particular sense of when books enter and exit my Arcanaeum.”

“Ah,” she says, as the return in her hands suddenly becomes supremely interesting. Mental note, then, to take a surreptitious spring cleaning of her desk, once they’re through here.

---

“—which is of course why I can’t find it,” Drevis is saying excitedly, waving his arm for some reason; he seems to register the confusion on both their faces and lowers his arm to his side, the lower half behind his back. “Oh, you won’t have retained any of that, will you?”

Kharish blinks. She is absolutely certain he wasn’t here a moment ago. “Sorry, Master Neloren, when did—”

“Where are my glasses?” Urag interrupts, standing.

“You took them off again while I was catching you up.” Drevis does an awkward little sidestep around to the edge of the desk to point. “Put them under there, I believe. I should have thought about what having it out while I was explaining would do, I apologize.” He shakes his head. “This is terribly inconvenient.”

Rubbing at her temple against the odd headache forming, Kharish says, “You found your invisible book then?”

“Not invisible,” Drevis corrects, “imperceptible. And no, I’m afraid. But I found what I was working on, and—well, it will take too long to explain a second time, but in short, the deflective field around the book must have gotten tangled with—” He stops himself from pulling whatever it is out from behind his back. “—right, yes; the point is, though, if I can touch it, I should be able to perceive it again and untangle it. I really appreciate your advice here,” he says earnestly. “I’ll let you know if it works.”

“My advice?” She points to herself in surprise. “I didn’t say anything?”

“You did just a moment ago,” he assures; “efficient methods of touch for an object that requires touch as prerequisite for perception is a tricky one, but certainly ‘maximizing my surface area’ is a good idea—”

“Did I say that?” Kharish asks, half an octave higher than normal. And then, more to herself, the headache spiking, “Why did I say that?”

Urag, having found his glasses, puts them back on as his face contorts like he’s pulled a muscle. She starts to say something, worried, but he holds up a hand to her and shakes his head. “Drevis. Is this project safe to have out?”

Hesitating a moment, Drevis taps his chin. “Not quite clear on that point yet, I’m afraid, but if I set it down I’ll lose track of it again.” He twists away to wrap the end of his cloak several times around the arm he’s been keeping behind his back, returning to face them with the appearance of a comically-large mitt on one hand. “There. Ah—just in case, write this down, but if you experience anything unusual in the next few hours, would you let me know?”

The shelving cart is full. The return box is completely empty. Last she remembers they were only a quarter finished. “I think I need to sit down a moment,” she says aloud.

“Probably a good idea,” Drevis agrees, starting to go as Urag leans over to pull the second chair closer for her. “If anyone needs me, I will be in my office, maximizing my surface area!”

She sits. “…I don’t really want to have said that.”

“Well,” Urag says, and she realizes he’s struggling not to laugh, “at least you won’t remember it.”