“It can’t be. You can’t be him. That’s impossible.”
“It’s improbable, not impossible. What’s a century when you can find healers like Dakari to keep you whole?” Professor Lachlan gave Esta a chastising look. “What’s a century when you’re waiting for the key to your plans? I’m a patient man, Esta. You must know that much by now.”
“You killed Dolph,” she said. “He trusted you, and you killed him.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand—Dolph wanted to destroy the Brink. He wanted to bring down the Order. You were on the same side. There wasn’t any reason to kill him.”
Professor Lachlan—Nibs—sneered. “Dolph had some grand plan to destroy the Brink and free the Mageus in the city. But what would that have done? Started a war with the Sundren, a war we were too weak to win . . . at least with the Book in his hands.”
“They were better hands than yours.”
“He thought we needed the Book to gain our freedom, as though the Book of Mysteries, the most ancient and hallowed record of magic, was some simple grimoire he could use to break a wicked spell,” Professor Lachlan scoffed. “He always was shaky on his Latin tenses. He misunderstood the message Leena sent him before the Order took her. I know, because she explained it to me when she gave me the note. . . . Not that I bothered to correct him. As long as he wanted to keep pursuing the Book, it worked for me, but I knew all along that it wasn’t that the Book could free us, but that we could free the Book . . . And now I plan to do just that.”
“But the Brink—”
Professor Lachlan waved off her protest. “I never cared about destroying the Brink. It never stopped me from doing the things I wanted to do. It can stay up for all I care. It’s a mere nuisance compared to what the Ars Arcana contains,” he told her, tapping the Book. “This isn’t just a record of the most important magical developments throughout history. It is an object infused with the very source of magic. Whoever can unlock it controls it. And whoever controls it will have the whole world in their hands.”
Esta remembered then what Harte had told her on the bridge—that no one had really understood the Ars Arcana’s true nature. He’d been wrong. Nibs had known. Nibs had always known, and he’d manipulated them all.
“And you think you should have that power?” she asked, urging him on as she tried to think of some way out of the mess she’d walked right into.
“Why not me? The Order could barely touch the power these pages contain. They knew what the Book was capable of, which is why they kept it under lock and key. But they were never brave enough to actually use it. They’d been warned by the last person brave enough to attempt unlocking the Book’s secrets and wielding its power after it nearly drove him mad.”
“One of the Order?” she asked, realizing that she could just begin to feel the drug they gave her wearing off. She didn’t know how long it would take before she could be free of it, but she might be able to wait it out. She needed to keep him distracted, to keep him talking. A little longer, and she could try to escape.
“One of their earliest founders,” Professor Lachlan told her. “Most don’t realize Isaac Newton started his career as an alchemist. Before he sat under any tree, he searched for the philosopher’s stone—for a way to isolate quintessence. I’ve had a long time to learn about the Ars Arcana, a long time to learn about Newton’s secrets. He got as far as creating the five artifacts by imbuing ancient objects from the five mystical dynasties with the power of Mageus whose affinities happened to align with the elements. But he stopped before he ever managed to unite them and use them to control the power of the Book. Historians believe that he had a nervous breakdown in 1693, but that wasn’t what happened at all. It was the Book, and his breakdown was the result of attempting to control its power. After he recovered, he gave up alchemy and entrusted the Book to the Order for safekeeping.”
“You always told me that elemental magic wasn’t real magic,” she argued, still reeling. “Or was that a lie, too?”
“It’s not. Elemental magic isn’t real magic. It requires breaking up the pieces of creation, dividing them and weakening them in order to control them. Real magic is about controlling the whole of creation, the spaces between the elements that make up the very fabric of existence. Mageus don’t need the elements, but we can use them. We’ve always been able to use them. With the right rituals, the elements can be quite useful to augment natural power. It’s what made the Order what it is. It’s what made you what you are,” he told her, lifting the cuff and examining it in the light of the desk lamp.
“The Order doesn’t have real magic,” she argued. She was feeling stronger now, but she had to keep him talking until she figured out how to escape. So she pressed on, taunting him with her disbelief. “They aren’t Mageus. All the power they have is stolen.”
He placed the cuff back onto the table before he looked at her. “That may be true now, but it wasn’t always. The Order of the Ortus Aurea began as a front. Like so many of those so-called occult societies, it was formed so the richest, most influential Mageus could hide in plain sight. The Order is one of the oldest, though, and they were able to maintain their power even as the Disenchantment destroyed magic.”
That news contradicted everything she’d ever been taught, everything she’d ever believed. “You’re telling me that the members of the Order were once Mageus?”
“Of course they were. There’s always been magic in the world, and at one time most people could put their finger on it, until they allowed themselves to forget. The Disenchantment helped with that. When the climate on the Continent grew too dangerous, the Mageus who could leave, did. They brought their little society to the New World, because they thought they could start fresh and they believed the new land was one where magic could take root. It didn’t work, of course. Away from their homelands, after a few generations, their power had faded. So they used the secrets in these pages to create the Brink as a way to protect their magic.
“But they couldn’t control it. ?What began as a way to build their power became a trap, and their magic continued to fade. A few generations more and the only magic they had left was the power they could steal through their experiments. The Brink was never intended as a weapon, but it became one well enough.