Inside the round chamber of the Ravenry's north tower, William sat at a table cluttered with books and scrolls. Across from him, Marwyn—who looked more like a crime lord than a maester—was flipping through a small volume, scarcely larger than his own hand. Piles of books crowded the floor, ragged maps hung from the stone walls, and a copper kettle over the hearth gave off the acrid scent of burning. Rubbing his nose, William glanced toward the courtyard, where the great weirwood that filled the yard was laden with noisy crows. Though he could not see them, he felt certain that the carved face in its trunk was staring straight at him.
Closing the little book, Marwyn set it down on the cleared space at the center of the table. "That's why you've never been able to forge a Valyrian steel link."
William gave an awkward smile, unable to reply.
Though one bore the nickname "the Mage" and the other "the Magic Knight," the two of them were not master and heir. William, a pragmatist at heart, sought out Marwyn only to study the spells taught to him by the warlocks—testing them for side effects, searching for hidden tricks, and probing why some worked while others failed. Beyond that, he had studied little of the occult. Once he'd mastered Qarth's system of incantations, he seldom bothered with Marwyn at all.
The moniker Magic Knight had first been a mocking nickname among William's defeated opponents. By sheer accident, it had stuck, spreading wider as he continued to win tournaments across the realm. Given his youth and his triumphs, people found the name oddly fitting.
Their private dealings were hardly intimate. William never sensed much magical aura from Marwyn, but after reading too many Citadel conspiracy tales, he instinctively kept a wary distance from this supposed expert in the arcane. Marwyn, in turn, detected that caution and never went out of his way to please him. Their relationship remained that of teacher and pupil—no more. If the warlocks hadn't failed to decipher these notes, William would never have come.
"This is indeed a notebook on sorcery," Marwyn explained, tapping the pages. "The drawings are a sequence of runes. I can't explain them in a few words. You'll understand once you've read…" He gestured at a towering stack in the corner. "Those books. Finish them, and it will be clear."
The pile held at least ten tomes, all thick, and William instantly felt a headache coming on.
"As for the other writing, it's not sorcery at all—merely a cipher invented by whoever wrote the notes. Still, not impossible to unravel. Go to Archmaester Ocley. He's a master of languages; it shouldn't trouble him much."
"Archmaester Ocley?" William muttered. "You really don't shy away from enemies, do you? That man despises magic. You'd hardly be welcome in his study, and if I show up, he'll likely drive me off with a broom." Staring at the dense metal links crowding Marwyn's bull-like neck, William hesitated. Worry for his father and sister finally outweighed his pride. "Archmaester, my matter is urgent. Could you give me more direct guidance?"
Marwyn pushed aside a book and picked up a pouch of sourgrass. Peeling a leaf free, he said, "They call you the Magic Knight, William." He slipped the leaf into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully, and went on, "Then you must understand—mystical power is like a sword's edge, but the study of the mysteries is the hilt. Only with the hilt can you truly wield the blade."
William weighed the cost of revealing everything—the strange origin of his own magic, the curse of Harrenhal, and more. What consequences might follow?
After a silence, he bowed respectfully. "Thank you for your teaching. If I face further problems, I'll return to seek your counsel." Whatever his unorthodox manner, Marwyn was still a maester of the Citadel. And if he truly meant it when he claimed the Citadel strove to build a world without magic, then his loyalties were not to be trusted.
Marwyn nodded, his face as calm and unreadable as still water.
When William pushed open the oaken door bound in iron, he saw Leo Tyrell sitting in a chair, reading. Dressed today in a green-and-gold striped silk doublet, Leo lifted his head at the sound and smirked when he noticed William's arms overflowing with books. His handsome face gleamed with mischief, eyes flickering as ever. "Well, well. Finally decided to become a true Magic Knight?"
Leo's sharp tongue had been evident since his first day at the Citadel. Most apprentices tolerated his jibes, cowed by his strength or his lineage. William, unimpressed by either, gave back as good as he got. "And you've always been a true sluggard, haven't you?"
Leo only chuckled and returned to his book. They had tested each other long ago, first with words, then with fists. Since then, Leo seldom provoked him beyond such harmless banter.
Shrugging, William gathered his books and left.
Sunlight filtered through thick leaves into the study of his Oldtown lodgings. Standing at the window, he read a letter. Nearby, Glop Vaty and Mokken Rota bent over a broad table, whispering together as they examined books and notebooks spread before them. The open pages bristled with intricate diagrams and lines of Valyrian script so dense that any untrained reader would likely reel from vertigo after a single glance.
Finishing the letter, William rolled it up, his face grave.
It was from Lord Walter, refusing William's request to bring his family to Oldtown. The water-driven workshop was thriving, Walter wrote, and he meant to expand it until its yield matched all the other revenues of Harrenhal combined. In that way, House Harroway could regain nearly seventy percent of its former strength without acquiring new lands, rising once more among the foremost houses of the Riverlands. The letter also mentioned Walter's efforts to reassemble the household troops he had once been forced to dismiss.
Expansion of industry or restoration of arms—both plans William welcomed. But so long as they remained at Harrenhal, Walter and Minisa's lives would be shrouded in peril.
"What a surprise—I never thought running a water-powered workshop would have this kind of side effect. Looks like I'll need to make progress quickly."
Since William and the warlock advisors believed the writing was probably only annotations for the runes, they abandoned efforts to decipher the cipher and focused instead on the runes themselves. If they could find similar ones in the books, why not just study those directly? Yet three days had passed since William's meeting with Marwyn, and relying on his "restoration," he had gone nearly sleepless, plowing through more than a dozen tomes—without the slightest result. Worse still, the more they read, the more confounding details appeared. Twice, William ran back to the Citadel, borrowing nearly twenty more books. That number far exceeded the usual allowance, forcing him to quietly slip a bag of silver stags to the apprentice who managed the library.
The warlocks were fascinated with learning new lore, but to William it felt like an utter waste of time—and time was something he could ill afford. "No wonder Marwyn looked like an old fisherman when I left that day—he knew I'd have no choice but to come crawling back!"
"Looks like I'll have to tell him about Harrenhal. As for the rest…" He glanced at the two warlocks still buried in study. "That I'll leave to you."
Walking to the desk, he picked out several sheets covered with copied runes—sketches he and the warlocks had made from the notebook. Since he wasn't sure whether the notebook held other secrets, he planned to leave only the drawings with Marwyn while taking the original back with him.
Gathering what he meant to bring, William bid farewell to the warlocks. Under Ragnor's respectful gaze, he mounted his horse and rode out of the small courtyard. Before long, he reached the crossroads where the Honeywine met the high road. Across the great stone bridge lay the palatial guildhalls, the Hightower rising to the left, and the Citadel standing to the right.
William turned left, heading for Garth, where he was due for training. Given his true strength, these thrice-weekly sessions were more like periodic check-ins to ease Garth's mind, since Garth bore some responsibility for William's safety and well-being in Oldtown.
Still rankled by his loss three days earlier, Erren had challenged William again. Garth hadn't objected, and so, as before, the two clashed in the practice yard, a ring of onlookers gathered around them. But "restoration" was no substitute for sleep. After three nights without rest, William felt no exhaustion, yet longed desperately to sleep. From the moment he stepped into the yard, he moved as if in a dream. His defenses held thanks to instinct, but his attacks lacked all pattern or force. To the spectators, the match looked like little more than sparring drills.
What must come did—Erren at last seized an opening and threw William to the ground. The moment his back struck the dirt, drowsiness overwhelmed him. Not wanting to move, he simply raised a hand in surrender. Garth, thinking William was only adding challenge to his training, nodded in approval.
Amid the good-natured laughter of the crowd, Erren hauled William to his feet. "William, I've decided—next tourney, I'll enter the lists myself."
William had no energy left to argue. Smiling faintly, he wished him luck in silence.
After changing clothes and taking his leave of Garth, William departed the training yard, intending to head for the Citadel. But as he walked the corridor, white clouds drifting overhead and a soft breeze on his face, he lost the will to move. So he leaned half-sitting against a wide stone balustrade, meaning to nap a while. Resting there, he grew bored and pulled the rune sketches from his satchel to study them. "Pity none of these runes can trigger my power the way a spell does. If they could, I might at least guess at their purpose from the reaction."
He tried channeling magic into the parchment—nothing.
…Half dreaming, half awake, a shape flickered at the edge of his vision. A familiar tang of potions filled the air. "Malora!"
At once, he snapped fully awake, stuffing the papers back into his bag and vaulting over the balustrade to head the other way. After a few steps, he realized she wasn't following. Curious, he glanced back—and there she stood at the very spot where he had lain, a sheet of paper in her hand, examining it intently.
Something had just gone very wrong.