3rd of Fall, 518
It was a couple days before Madeira dared to take the book out again. Leth's light and a single sputtering lamp were not enough to illuminate the dark space under her bed, where she was forced to grope blindly for its leather binding. Her fingers first brushed the bristly fur on Raj's snarling lip, and if she squinted she could just see the starlight from the porthole reflected in his glass eyes. She had set the beheaded Kelvic on top of the book to weight it down, but subconsciously she had hoped he would protect the book from prying eyes.
Gently moving Raj aside, she fished out the heavy tome as quietly as she could. Allister was working his night shift on the deck, but the cabin was still full of sleeping occupants. Spooks the cat was flat on his back on her pillow, grunting in his sleep. Bird had his head under his brilliantly blue wing in his golden birdcage, and Rosie was a puddle of feathers in her applebox nest.
Madeira sat with her back to the wall and smoothed the book across the lap of her skirt. Lightly waterstained from its adventures in the shipwreck, the book was otherwise in mint condition. Yet she couldn’t help but think it was impossibly old. Everything from the strange way it was bound (with an adhesive she didn't recognize and tiny metal prongs) to the subject, which was a discipline of magic she had never even heard whisperings of, spoke of something ancient.
She traced the embossed title, Architectrix: a Compendium of Knowledge, and marvelled again on how she could be initiated in a magic she knew nothing about. Well, that could be fixed. Steeling herself, she opened the book's creaking spine.
It was at that moment that a magic she knew very well reared it’s head, as her senses detected the lingering taste of soulmist in the air.
"Emma, don't spy. It's rude."
Slowly a sheepish little girl in her nightdress materialized crouched in the corner, her brown curls obscuring her gruesomely scabbed face.
"I wasn't spying. I was just being quiet!", she whispered entirely too loudly. Spooks gave a loud snort and tossed on the pillow.
"Shhh! If you must speak do so over here."
The petulant ghost glided silently through the cramped room and settled at Madeira's side. The lick of Emma's flickering shroud sent bolts of electric cold up her arm, she scooted over to put a more comfortable distance between them. The ghost craned her neck to see what Madeira was doing. Her eyes skimmed the printed words without comprehending, as she couldn't read.
”What's that?"
"A book on magic", Madeira explained, "Architectrix. Have you heard of it before?"
Emma shook her head.
"I didn't think so. Well, lets see if we can learn anything about it.” Madeira smiled, and opened to the index. With a finger trailing down the silk smooth pages, she found the page number for the introduction. Clearing her throat, she began to read.
"Architectrix is a discipline of world magic that breaths a piece of a mage’s life force and the life force of another Architectrix into a physical structure and gives that structure full and unquestionable life." Madeira whispered. The idea of an structure being 'alive'
wasn't a huge leap for the girl who grew up in Alvadas. But even then the city was alive only spuriously, and only by divine magic. To think she could actually make one herself, bring something alive into the world...
Emma had her lip between her teeth, cracking the crusted sores in the corners of her mouth. "Arch-I-treck...."
"Arch-ee-tec-trix" Madeira explained. "Try again."
"Arch-ee-tec-trix", the ghost sounded out carefully and smiled proudly. "Is it talking about houses?"
"It can be anything, it seems." Madeira mumbled, scanning the text. "Keeps, castles, farms, shops, ships..." The opportunities were laying out before her. She read through accounts of a great Empire before the Valterrian that gave rise to sentient military fortresses that worked to protect the soldiers inside. Another spoke of an Architectrix temple that was given a gnosis by Avalis, and learned to prophesies the future. There was an orphanage that took care of the children after the suspicious disappearance of the Mistress. These buildings had motives and instincts and could be marked by gods. They were nothing short of full, sentient people.
