Baby teleportation?

The night hadn’t been kind. Tia woke with her mouth dry and her limbs leaden, eyes aching like she hadn’t closed them at all. The blanket was twisted around her legs, a knot she must’ve thrashed into during some dream she couldn’t quite remember. Corin looked worse – pale, eyes rimmed red, hair stuck flat to his forehead with sweat. He didn’t meet her gaze when he sat up, just rubbed the heel of his palm against his eyes and muttered something she didn’t catch.

The stairs creaked under their feet, the smell of fried roots and bread already hanging thick in the air.

Rika was at the table, her bowl almost empty, the last bite pushed around by her spoon. Balthan and Vesh sat nearby, midway through their own meal. Neither spoke much – just the sound of chewing, the scrape of wood on wood, the occasional sip.

Tia’s steps slowed halfway down. Corin hesitated beside her. For a heartbeat it looked like he might call out – something, anything – but Rika was already rising. She gathered her cloak with a sharp tug, tail brushing the bench legs, and started for the stairs without lifting her eyes.

Corin opened his mouth. No sound came out.

She passed them on the steps without pause, her shoulder brushing the wall as she climbed.

He let out a breath, low and sad, and dropped his gaze to the floor. Then, with a small nod toward the benches, he followed Tia the rest of the way down.

The stew this morning was root-heavy, earthy, with a slice of – drumrole – bread on the side. Tia spooned a mouthful, but the taste hardly registered. She forced it down anyway. Corin ate even less.

“Mm.” Vesh dabbed his snout with the back of his wrist, his voice low but steady. “Today, perhaps, it is best if the two of you go to Mystikos again.”

Corin looked up, startled. “But… Balthan said yesterday–”

“That we should all work,” Balthan rumbled, not looking up from his bread. “Jobs, coin, whatever we can scrape.”

“And we still will,” Vesh said smoothly, “but wounds left raw will fester. Better to give them air. You and Tia – go, as usual. Learn what you can. Balthan and I will find honest work to keep coin in our purses.”

Tia chewed slowly, watching them both. Balthan’s jaw worked tight, but he didn’t argue. Just grunted and tore another bite from his bread.

Corin only nodded, subdued. “If… if you’re sure.”

Vesh gave him a faint smile. “I am.”

The rest of the meal slipped by in near-silence, broken only by clinking spoons and the soft crack of bread crust. The air felt lighter than last night’s – but only just.

They didn’t linger after breakfast. Corin pushed his barely touched bowl away, Tia did the same, both of them rising with a kind of unspoken agreement.

Upstairs, the air was cooler, the shutters letting in thin morning light. Corin crossed to his bunk and scooped up the red spellbook from where it lay half-buried in blankets. He held it for a moment, thumb brushing the slightly worn spine, before tucking it under his arm.

Tia wandered to her corner, eyes landing on her pointed hat hanging from the peg. Normally she wouldn’t step outside without it – it made her feel taller, louder, a little more like herself. Today, though, it just looked… wrong. Out of place. She left it swaying there, as if even the hat knew better than to join them.

When she glanced over, she caught Corin staring at his own hat, hesitating. He sighed, muttered something under his breath, and left it too.

Their bags slung, they stood awkwardly for a moment, listening to the creak of the floorboards below. Then came the muffled scrape of chairs, Balthan’s gruff voice, Vesh’s low murmur, and the heavy thump of boots leaving through the tavern door.

A few heartbeats later, the silence pressed in again.

“Guess it’s our turn,” Tia said quietly.

They slipped down the stairs, careful not to make too much noise. Outside, the morning was already busy – carts rattling over cobbles, merchants barking greetings, the air thick with the scent of spice and smoke. But woven through it all was the shine of armor and the rhythm of boots. Soldiers at the corner, soldiers at the fountain, soldiers posted by the stairways. Their presence was imposing, impossible to miss.

Tia adjusted her cloak and tried to look casual, her pulse quickening all the same. Corin’s shoulders hunched as they walked, gaze fixed ahead.

“Don’t look suspicious,” she muttered.

“I’m not,” he said, a little too quickly.

She gave him a sidelong glance. “You are.”

That earned her the faintest twitch of a smile. It slipped away just as quickly.

They walked a few more paces before Tia spoke again, softer this time. “So… your family. Draemont. Is that really you?”

Corin’s step faltered. His fingers tightened on the red tome until his knuckles whitened.

“It’s… yeah.” He kept his eyes on the cobblestones. “Corin Draemont. My father’s a marquess of the Dominion. My brothers will be too. I was supposed to…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I wasn’t supposed to run. Or hide. Or–”

“Pretend to be a farmer’s son?” Tia finished for him.

He flinched, guilt flashing across his face. “I just… I didn’t want you all to see me as that. As him. As them. I wanted to be–”

“Corin?” she offered, tilting her head.

His throat bobbed. “Yeah.”

Tia didn’t press further. The street opened wider, the looming arches of the upper terrace ahead. Guards clustered by the stairway, helmets gleaming.

“Then just be him,” she said. “The rest we’ll figure out.”

Corin glanced at her, eyes uncertain, but for the first time since yesterday, he didn’t look quite so crushed.

Up the terraces they went, blending into the steady tide of merchants, apprentices, and errand boys that climbed the wide stone stairs. The guards at the checkpoints barely spared them a glance, too busy watching for troublemakers or whispering about the latest rumors of the runaway princess.

Past the second landing, the Verdant Spire loomed in view – all green glass and ivory stone, its arched windows glowing faintly with wards. The mage-sentries stationed at its gates stood like statues, eyes sharp, their long staves humming with barely veiled threat. Tia tugged her cloak tighter and hurried her pace, glad when the crowd swallowed them again, carrying them away from that watchful shadow.

By the time they reached the quieter upper lanes, the streets narrowed, twisting past ivy-choked walls and crooked lantern posts. And there, wedged between a perfumer’s shop and a shuttered scribe’s stall, sat the familiar arched doorway with its peeling paint.
Mystikos’ Transcendent Tower of Thaumaturgy.

Tia pushed the door open, the little bell overhead giving its cheerful muted chime.

The smell hit first – sharp herbs, burnt sugar, and something faintly metallic, like lightning caught in a jar. Inside was as cluttered as before, stacks of scrolls teetering precariously beside half-dissected contraptions. A lazy cloud of glittering dust drifted in the beam of light from the upper window.

In the far corner was the trapdoor, open and with its ladder down. So without further ado they climbed up.

And in the middle of it all, hunched over a desk already drowning in parchment, sat Mystikos. His crooked hat had slipped down over one eye, his beard smudged with ink, and in his hand he held a quill currently dripping onto the wrong page entirely.

“Ah!” he exclaimed without looking up, as if he’d been expecting them all along. “The prodigies return! And not exploded, I see. Good, good. Explosion rate is down two-fold this month!”

Tia grinned despite herself. “Morning to you too.”

Mystikos finally glanced up, one eyebrow shooting high when he spotted Corin’s face. “Hmm. You look as though you swallowed a bread crumb and then the bread crumb wrote you a sad poem.”
He pushed his papers aside with a flourish, nearly toppling a jar of marbles in the process. “Come, come, what grim clouds follow you now, my young apprentice? Tell Mystikos, so he may blow on them and call it wisdom.”

Corin managed a faint smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. He adjusted his grip on the red tome, almost hugging it.

Tia dropped onto the cozy old couch. “We’re here to keep learning. Distractions are… good.”

“Ahh,” Mystikos said, as if that explained everything. He wagged his quill at them, nearly splattering ink across the desk. “Then today we speak of motion. Of stepping where you are not, of finding space in space. Teleportation, yes?”

At that, Tia sat up straighter. Her pulse gave a little leap. Teleportation. The word tasted like a door.

Mystikos beamed at her expression, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Careful now. Such spells are like wine – thrilling in the right dose, ruinous if you guzzle.” He tapped his temple. “But you, girl, you’ve got the hunger in your eyes. That hunger makes fools – or trailblazers. Let us see which you become.”

Mystikos shuffled a stack of half-burned diagrams aside and dragged an ink-stained board closer with his foot. “Now! Basic motions, safe ones, things unlikely to snap your limbs like twigs.” He flicked a finger, and three motes of light bobbed in the air before him. “We do not begin with flesh. Never. Always dead matter first. Stone, cloth, fruit, if you must waste good fruit. Bodies–” he wagged the quill so hard a blot of ink spattered the wall “–are far too precious to gamble on a first try.”

Tia leaned forward, eyes bright. “So… like baby teleportation?”

“Exactly! Babies with a fondness for hurling themselves into walls.” Mystikos jabbed the quill at her. “And many a young fool has tried such a thing, and many a young fool has ended up half-here, half-there. Very messy. Very educational. For the coroner.”

Corin gave a weak huff of laughter but quickly dropped his gaze back to the floor. His fingers rubbed absent circles into the spine of his red tome.

Mystikos clapped his hands. “So! Choose an object. Small, sturdy. Something you won’t mourn if it bursts.”

Tia glanced around and spotted a cracked clay cup on the desk. She pointed. “That?”

“Perfect. Ugly enough to deserve abuse.” He dragged it in front of her, then sketched a quick, shimmering sigil in the air. “Now, the blink. A hop no farther than your own arm’s reach. Precision is everything. Energy, word, gesture. Off by a whisker and poof – shards of cup decorating my beard.”

Tia rolled her shoulders, determined. She whispered the syllable, tried the twist of hand. The cup flickered – vanished for a heartbeat – then popped back down an inch to the left with a clumsy clink.

Her heart leapt. “Did you see that?”

Mystikos threw his arms wide, smudging ink down his robe. “Marvelous! Very nearly clean! And the ceiling is still intact. A victory.”

Corin’s lips curved the faintest bit, though his shoulders never lifted.

Mystikos peered at the clay cup as though it had just performed a circus trick. Then his gaze snapped back to Tia, eyes wide, beard bristling.
“Do you realize,” he said slowly, tapping the desk with his quill for emphasis, “that what you just did would take most apprentices weeks to achieve? Weeks! I’ve seen full-grown men exhaust themselves for hours just to scoot a pebble across the floor.”

Tia blinked, heat rushing to her cheeks. “Really? I mean – it didn’t feel that hard.”

“Ha! Dangerous words!” Mystikos wagged the quill like a scolding finger. “When something feels easy, it means the trap is deeper. Magic is a liar. It smiles at you, says ‘come closer,’ then–” he clapped his ink-stained hands together with a crack “–you’re gone. Half of you in one room, the other half somewhere… unpleasant.”

Corin shifted uneasily on the bench, his eyes fixed on the cup.

Mystikos leaned closer, voice dropping into a mock-grave whisper. “And worse still, imagine misplacing the thing. You do not want a clay pot materializing inside your ribcage. Or your friend’s eyeball. Or… well, anywhere a pot was not invited.”

Tia’s face scrunched. “Ugh. Right. Point taken.”

“Good. Very good. Keep objects away from flesh. Away from anything that twitches, breathes, or complains about stubbed toes. That is the rule. No–” he stabbed the air dramatically “–that is law. And the law outside these walls agrees with me. Teleportation spells, true ones, are forbidden.”

Her brows lifted. “Illegal? Why?”

Mystikos puffed up, shoulders rising as though he were about to deliver a decree. “Because,” he said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial hush, “no one truly understands it. Not fully. Not safely. You think a misspoken syllable can make your spell fizzle? With teleportation, a misspoken syllable can turn you inside out. A poorly drawn circle? Poof – and congratulations, you are now part of the mountain over there. Both of you unhappy about it.”

Corin made a strangled sound in his throat.

Mystikos jabbed the quill toward the window, toward the faint silhouette of the Verdant Spire looming over the city. “That is why the Arcanum hoards the practice. Originally the government deemed it totally illegal. But the Arcanum protested… it’s not like anyone could stop them anyway. Only their chosen few may prod at it, fiddle with it, dissect it. And the rest of us”–he thumped his ink-stained chest–“are told to behave ourselves with sparks and trinkets.”

He flung the quill down, narrowly missing an open inkwell. “Hah! As if I couldn’t unravel a void loop if given the chance! As if I haven’t the brains, the vision, the–” He broke off, growling at the ceiling with a fist raised high. “Arcanum!”

Tia blinked. “…You don’t like them very much.”

“I admire them,” Mystikos corrected instantly, beard bristling. “Greatest minds of our age. Greatest spells ever crafted. Their hallways are paved with incantations I would sell my left boot just to peek at. They are the pinnacle of magical society!” He leaned across the desk, hat askew, eyes shining with manic fervor. “And they wouldn’t even let me through the door.”

Tia crackled, “You reached the door? Wow.”

Corin chuckled, but then asked in an almost fascinated manner, “You… applied?”

“Applied?” Mystikos scoffed so hard his beard puffed out. “I applied thrice! Sent scrolls, essays, a demonstration involving seventeen lizards and a very cooperative Sska’veth! Do you know what they wrote back? Do you? ‘Dear Mister Mystikos, while your… enthusiasm is noted, we at the Arcanum require prodigious skill as a baseline. Please refrain from sending livestock in the future.’ Livestock! As if Sska’veths aren’t excellent conduits!”

Tia bit her lip to stop a laugh.

He sank back into his chair with a dramatic sigh, spreading his arms wide in mock defeat. “So here I am, denied my rightful spire, reduced to tutoring half-broke adventurers about magic trinkets and juggling marbles for rent.” He paused, then grumbled again under his breath: “Arcanum.”

The room went quiet except for the faint ticking of some lopsided contraption on a shelf.

“But really? I’ve come to terms with it. I love my humble little shop. And I even have my very own apprentices, so I’m not complaining too much,” he said with a weak chuckle.

Tia glanced at the clay cup, still sitting crooked where she’d blinked it. Her chest tightened, pulse quickening at the thought.

If teleportation is real, if someone could send things across space – maybe even across worlds…

But Mystikos’s warning echoed just as loudly: half-here, half-there.

“...So if I wanted to actually learn it,” she asked slowly, “I’d have to go there. To the Arcanum.”

Mystikos shot her a look so sharp it could have cut parchment. “Yes. But I’ll tell you now what I tell every bright-eyed fool who whispers that word at me: don’t. Don’t you dare. Not unless you plan to hand them your whole life, your years, your blood, your soul, and probably your pets. They will take it all. And they will smile while doing it.”

He tapped the quill once more against the desk, this time more gently. “The Arcanum makes legends. But legends are built out of corpses stacked beneath them. Remember that, girl.”

Tia swallowed.

Across from her, Corin stared into his tome but not really reading, face pale, as though the weight of both their secrets had only just doubled.

Mystikos, having expelled most of his indignation at the Arcanum, clapped his hands and declared, “Enough doom and gloom! If we sit here brooding about what can slice you in half, you’ll never learn the fun things. Sparks! Bursts! The kinds of spells that make children gasp and innkeepers cry about their curtains!”

He dug through a drawer and produced two wands, one slightly bent, the other with a scorch mark down its shaft. He tossed the bent one at Tia. “Try not to jab yourself in the eye.”

She caught it, grinning despite herself. “What does it do?”

“Depends on how you wiggle it. That’s half the fun.”

The next hours blurred into a parade of near-misses and smoky laughter. Mystikos demonstrated gestures with all the gravity of a swordmaster – then tripped over his own ink bottles as sparks burst from the ceiling. Tia mimicked the syllables, clumsy at first, until she coaxed a sputtering spray of violet motes that fizzled like fireworks in her palm. They hovered a moment before popping one by one like soap bubbles.

Her chest thrilled. “I did it!”

“You did!” Mystikos crowed, grabbing her wrist and shaking it like she’d just won a prize. “Not dead, not charred, and only slightly singed the couch cushion! A triumph!”

Corin, still quiet but no longer sunken, let out the smallest chuckle. Tia pressed a wand toward him. “Your turn.”

He hesitated, opened his tome in one hand reading from it. With a muttered word and a clumsy flick, a gout of golden sparks exploded out of the wand, showering Mystikos’ hat.

The old mage yelped, smacking at the flames, then cackled. “Ha! Delightful! Keep it, boy, keep it – just don’t point it at my eyebrows again, I need those for expression.”

The practice spilled into another, then another – tiny flares of color, darting wisps that sizzled against the air. Corin grew steadier, his movements smoothing, his mouth almost smiling. Tia picked up the cadence of the Empyrean tongue, the way syllables rolled sharp and strange against her teeth, until it no longer felt alien but thrilling, like secret words shaping the world.

Who would’ve thought learning vocabulary could be fun?

The cluttered room shimmered with light and smoke, a thousand failed sparks littering the air. But there was laughter too – real laughter, even from Corin – and for the first time since that day, Tia’s chest eased.

Mystikos beamed at them both, hat singed, beard full of ash. “Yes, yes! Chaos contained! Mostly! Look at you two – already brighter than half the dolts I’ve tutored.” He wagged his quill proudly. “Prodigies, both of you. Don’t let the Arcanum hear me say it, but I’d stake my left boot on it.”

Tia glanced at Corin, his cheeks flushed in the glow of fading sparks. Her wand was still warm in her hand, her pulse buzzing with the aftertaste of magic.

For a while, at least, the silence of the morning felt far away.