#the magisterim series
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secretly-a-catamount · 8 months ago
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  Water is eternal. It cannot be created. It cannot be destroyed.
  Water is ancient. It fell from the heavens at the beginning of the world encased in rock, and, once it was freed, drowned the flames and ash. It falls to the earth still, a cycle that cannot be broken, an ouroboros eating its own tail.
  Water is all-encompassing, everywhere. It is present in ever living thing. It seeps into that which is believed to be dead but is not.
  Water births.
  Water sustains.
  Water kills.
  The man walked up the misted dock with an assurance that could only be granted by absolute power; someone who was used to taking what he wanted, the very mountains crumbling beneath his will. His skin was paler than sun-bleached bone, and his hair was the color of burnished gold and fell in tousled waves to his coat collar. He wore black clothing, blacker boots, and a dark gray jacket that accentuated his musculature well, silver buttons neatly fastened through ever hole atop his wrists and up the deceptively delicate, almost swan-like curve of his throat. His blood ran slowly through his veins, each beat of his heart punctured by a wound that would never heal.
  He stopped halfway down the dock, hellfire-green eyes scanning the partially obscured surface of the lake, and spoke.
  “I need you to do something for me.”
  The trees did not answer, gnarled roots and trunks bent, arms burdened with leaves bending down to be swallowed by the water, but the man had not expected them to. The mist did not answer either, but he had not expected it to, anymore than the trees. The wind, faint and weak, running the incorporeal tendrils of its fingers down his neck, didn’t answer, but he had not expected it to anymore than he had the trees and the mist.
  “I said: I need you to do something for me.”
  We heard you the first time, the response came from everywhere and nowhere, a thousand voices speaking as one but slightly overlapping, the angry buzz of bees, the deafening patter of raindrops against a metal roof, the howl of a hurricane, waves crashing against the shore, who are you, to think you can command the Element of Water?
  “I’m the Enemy of Death.”
  A moment of silence, then a loud crack as the end of the dock splintered off, then a thump as a mangled corpse pulled itself from the churning depths and heaved itself onto the splintered end of the dock.
  The mage gasped and staggered back, watching as the animated corpse dragged itself towards him with the nasty scraps of bone against wood, and the wet slaps of wood against rotted flesh. The water, splintered boards, rusted nails, vegetation, and silt, came with it, reconstructed its body as it went.
  By the time the Devoured was erected and whole, the Enemy of Death had composed himself again to the point of neutrality.
  The Devoured smiled like a predator, the vines wrapped around her bones and ruptured flesh acting as muscles and ligaments, her remaining bits of skin splitting at the movement, peeling away from her ruined body. Blood and oil leaked from her empty eye sockets, and her black hair twisted around her form like a shroud. She was vaguely humanoid, vaguely feminine, and vaguely young. She wore the tattered remains of a Golden Year uniform and a Magisterium wristband.
  “Hello, Tamara.”
  Hello, Aaron.
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secretly-a-catamount · 9 months ago
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Can I come with you?
Copper Gauntlet questions
spoilers herein
Hi :) Thank you to you and Holly for another lovely book! The Copper Gantlet has both my boys (9 and 13) happy, excited and wanting more - and me as well! As a longtime reader of oldschool fantasy, I was wondering if Jasper’s name might have been inspired by the Jasper in Wizard of Earthsea, who is Ged’s rival at school? Thanks again for a great book! Can’t wait to read more :-) — catrinezorn
Holly and I both looked at each other in surprise at this — and then thought: maybe? We’re both of course read Earthsea, and we both believe things stay firmly seated in the back of your brain. So it could well have been unconscious!
Okay so I just finished copper gauntlet and it was every bit as amazing as I expected it to be… BUT I have a trivial question that has been plaguing me since the first book. So reading Call’s name in my head I assumed it was pronounced like Call-um, like when you say his name it would rhyme with pal. Right. But then I thought it could be pronounced like ‘Call’ as in ‘Call someone on the phone’ and now every time I read his name my brain automatically says it twice and I. Need. To. Know. I understand this probably isn’t the most pressing question right now, but pleaaaseeee. Love your books and Holly Blacks too xxxx :) — anna-bels
We say it Call, like rhymes with pal.
Hi Cassie! I have a question for your and Holly’s Magisterium series: is Kai Hale a boy, girl, or other? Because there are no pronouns attached to the name in either IT or CG. — lysander-au-lune
Kai is a boy. :) Kai is a name that exists in many languages so I can see the confusion!
Dear Cassie, I just finished reading The Copper Gauntlet yesterday afternoon (before “Day of the Doctor” came on), and I was not expecting Call’s secret to come out this soon in the series (even if there are only three books left), but I am so happy that it did because that means Call doesn’t have to do everything by himself anymore and hide his secret from his friends-and Jasper- anymore. I also loved the scene with Celia and Callum at the end because Call just seemed so awkward, and I love it. I was in denial for Call being “The Enemy of Death” for so long because he wasn’t a Makar and tada. Anyways, thank you so much for this amazing book series, that I will continue to spectulate until the next book comes out, then the next book, then the last book in which I will sob for days.  — thelasthoursx
Thank you! In our original outline, Call’s secret remained hidden much longer — like, books longer! But we realized that people knowing was actually more interesting than waiting to see when they’d find out. It was something I figured out with the Dark Artifices, too, so I’m excited to see how it all plays out. It definitely raises the stakes — expect some very disturbing developments in Magisterium 3.
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secretly-a-catamount · 9 months ago
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Magisterium Pinterest Boards | WIP
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secretly-a-catamount · 9 months ago
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I’m insulted. What about me? I’m here, too, you know. Honestly, the nerve! (/j)
god my back hurts from being one of the sole content providers in the magisterium fandom
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