//------------------------------// // Traces in the Margins // Story: Solstice // by Scorpius //------------------------------// Substituting this result into equation 4.36, it becomes clear that the limit as S➝∞ is, in fact, the Dilown Equation! This means that, for arbitrarily large sacrificial energies*, the energy available for a ritual’s spell is inversely proportional to the power of the Wards that are in place to contain it, and any ritual spellcaster is limited by the very spells they have cast to protect themselves. This has led to the modern practice of finely-balanced safety Wards for powerful rituals, that are exactly strong enough to protect from the damage of any miscast spell, given the limitations on that spell's power by the Wards themselves. A method for calculating this is derived in chapter five. —from The Perfect Ritual: The Necessity of Wards in Sacrificial Magic Even after an hour, Em was still having difficulty getting to grips with the whole “magical memory loss” business. They had, it appeared, been allowed to leave their notes and the books they had been using out on the desk—since they had complete reservation of the Starswirl Wing for the next few days, there was no worry about things being lost or misplaced. But it was strange to see notes written in her own scrappy mouthwriting that were full of ideas and information she genuinely didn’t know, and it was stranger still to read a passage from a book she knew she must have read but couldn’t begin to remember. At least she could take consolation in the fact that Alex was having as much trouble adjusting as she was. “I can’t make any sense of this,” he said, groaning and resting his head against the desk for the third time that morning. “And I wrote the damn notes. Do you recognise any of this formula from what you’ve been reading?” Em glanced over at the scroll Alex had open, and let out a small gasp when she saw the complexity of the spell formula he’d written down. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” he continued, drily, and Em stuck her tongue out at him in response, before turning back to her own notes. It seemed as if she’d spent most of the previous afternoon studying soul magic and, if her own notes were anything to go by, the subject was as disgusting as it sounded. One parchment simply contained a list of books, with the phrase “Do Not Read” scrawled in large letters at the top and underlined three times. Em hadn’t let her curiosity get the better of her. Yet. “This would be so much easier if they let us sleep in here,” Em muttered. “We’d not have to go through that damn memory-wipe every evening, and we might be able to make some progress.” Alex rolled his eyes. “As much as I like the sound of living in a library, I’d rather not sleep in the most terrifying rooms in all of Canterlot. Besides, I’m struggling enough with sleep from this case alone—can you imagine how much worse it would be if we had to remember all this while trying to sleep?” Em considered it for about half a second, before violently shaking her head. Her partner smirked. “Didn’t think so.” “Emily?” Em looked up from Magic and the Soul, shooting Alex a dark look. It had been long enough now that she’d given up on correcting him, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t show her frustration in other, little ways. “Yes, Alexander?” Alex’s face remained unchanged, a neutral expression of slight worry, as he slid a book across the table to her. “Can you take a look at this?” he asked. Em gingerly lifted the front cover of the book to check the title: The Perfect Ritual: The Necessity of Wards in Sacrificial Magic. Frowning, she lowered the pages, and let her eyes skim over the page Alex had passed to her. “What am I looking at, exactly?” she asked, a few moments later. Sure, the text was interesting—and given their culprit had avoided using any safety Wards at the site of the ritual, probably very useful—but there didn’t seem to be anything in particular on that page that was worth talking about that Alex hadn’t already written a little footnote about. “The note, Emily.” Alex’s voice sounded urgent, and Em looked again at the uneven scrawl across the bottom of the page. “You don’t need to communicate by passing notes, you know,” Em said, smirking at Alex’s frustrated expression. “I mean, this isn’t the Arcana. Nobody’s stopping us talking. And your mouthwriting is worse than mine—now that’s saying something. Unless… did you write the note yesterday and only just find it again? Because that would make some sen—” “I didn’t write it.” Alex’s voice was barely even a whisper, but it felt as loud as a shout in Em’s mind. For a moment, all she could think was those words, as if they were echoing in her brain, repeating before she had a chance to figure out what it was that they meant. I didn’t write it. Alex wasn’t passing her notes like a stallion at the Arcana—he was sharing probably the most important discovery of their time here. Because if he hadn’t written it, and she hadn’t written it either, then… I didn’t write it. … then someone else must have. Someone who had been in the Starswirl Wing to research ritual magic and sacrifices. Someone who had gone to the lengths of marking a passage in a restricted textbook to help themselves remember their thoughts when they next came back. Someone who wanted to perform a ritual without safety Wards… I didn’t write it. “The killer did.” The words were out of her mouth before she’d consciously thought them, but she knew the moment that she said it they were true. It could be coincidence—it could always be coincidence—but so few ponies ever accessed the Starswirl Wing that the chances were miniscule. The killer had been here, in the Starswirl Wing. Part of her had always known, for where else would anyone find the kind of information they needed to cast a ritual of that sort of power, of that kind of horrific scale? But all of a sudden the thought took on a whole new, awful meaning, and Em found herself standing up in shock, as if afraid that she might have shared a cushion with the nameless unicorn who had haunted her nightmares. Alex rose, too, albeit calmly and slowly. “We should report this to the boss,” he said. “I’ll have a word with the Guards about needing this book as evidence.” Em watched as Alex trotted calmly down an aisle of the Starswirl Wing, towards the wide, open doors where the Guards stood just beyond the memory Wards. She forced herself to take a deep, slow breath, before calmly picking up one of the books on the table and glancing around to remind herself where it came from: just because Alex was willing to leave without tidying up their mess didn’t mean she was. It wasn’t until three books later that she realised the bastard had done it on purpose. *Soul? Magic