Chương 58: Hidden charm

Lira woke several hours later than usual and immediately noticed the difference. Her body felt significantly better than it had the previous morning, which was hardly surprising considering she had actually slept in a bed this time. Plus, the extra hours of rest had done wonders for her mood. After stretching lazily beneath the blankets, Lira decided to do something she had been technically neglecting for far too long. She took a proper bath.

Ever since learning her self-cleaning spell, actual bathing had become increasingly unnecessary from a practical standpoint. The spell removed grime, refreshed clothing, and generally kept her presentable with minimal effort. Unfortunately, there was one flaw in relying entirely on magical hygiene. Other people existed, and other people had eyes.

A maid who was never seen bathing and never washing clothes, yet never looked remotely disheveled, would eventually begin attracting the sort of curiosity Lira strongly preferred to avoid. So, for the sake of maintaining a believable illusion of normalcy, she gathered her things and made use of the communal bath facilities like a perfectly ordinary human being. The experience was admittedly pleasant. Warm water, actual soap, and a brief period of uninterrupted peace added to her growing pleasant state of mind.

By the time she finished, changed into one of her newer outfits, and braided her hair properly, she felt significantly more civilized. From there, she made her way toward the kitchen for what was technically a very late breakfast or an early lunch. By the time she finally returned to the library, Lira felt more refreshed than she had in days, which meant it was an excellent time to create another spell.

Yesterday's success with a Mana Stabilization spell had opened an entirely new avenue of magical paranoia-driven innovation. Now she wanted the logical companion to that spell: a Mana Concealment Enchantment. If mana stabilization functioned by restoring magical disturbances to a neutral state after a spell had been cast, then what she needed now was a method of hiding those disturbances while they were actively occurring. A magical blindfold, or perhaps more accurately, a magical camouflage.

Lira settled into her alcove, retrieved her father's lexicon, and began considering word combinations. The structure would almost certainly resemble her mana stabilization spell. There was no reason to reinvent something that already functioned well. That meant four of the five words were already obvious. Kisar. Maja. Tarasana. Kurur. Symbol. Magic. Pocket. Space. The final word was the only uncertainty. At first, she considered Selan. Stillness. But after a few moments of thought, she dismissed it.

Stillness implied inactivity or calm. That was not what she was trying to achieve. She did not want magic to be still. She wanted it to be hidden, masked, or perhaps blended into its surroundings. Ideally, she would have preferred a word closer to reflection or mimicry, something that implied magical distortion appearing natural by imitating ambient conditions. Unfortunately, after scanning through the lexicon, she failed to find anything suitably precise. So she settled for the next best option: Veshar.

Concealment. It was broad, but conceptually it would work well enough. Lira nodded to herself and wrote down the final structure. Mana Obfuscation. Kisar. Maja. Veshar. Tarasana. Kurur. Symbol. Magic. Concealment. Pocket. Space. With that, she was ready to enter meditation.

"Pika. Selan. Tureth." The conceptual foundation came easier this time. Much of the spell's structure overlapped with the stabilization enchantment she had already developed. She focused first on magical perception, on what it meant to notice something unusual. Then she shifted toward the concept of avoiding notice entirely, a pocket of space where magical flow looked ordinary. That thought, unexpectedly, drew on memories from an entirely different part of her life: forgery.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Her years working for criminal syndicates had taught her that the best lie was never an obvious fabrication, but falsehood hidden beneath a sufficient layer of truth. A forged document was not convincing because it was perfect, but because it looked plausible enough to avoid scrutiny. That was exactly what she wanted this spell to accomplish.

Rather than erasing all magical evidence completely, it was better to hide it beneath a convincing layer of normalcy. The concept clicked neatly into place. Click. Lira smiled. Using her ink manipulation spell, she created a rune design visually similar to the stabilization enchantment.

"Asatan. Tir. Kisar." A circular outer ring of alternating Tarasana and Kurur runes formed the perimeter. Inside, she arranged orderly repeating sequences of Maja and Veshar in tight symmetrical patterns. Once complete, she cast her newest spell.

"Kisar. Maja. Veshar. Tarasana. Kurur." Nothing visibly changed. That was expected. She immediately activated magical perception.

"Pika. Maja. Syneth." Still nothing obvious. The magical disturbance from her heating rune remained clearly visible. Lira frowned. That was disappointing. Did she make a miscalculation? Then she paused. Perhaps she was thinking about it incorrectly. This was not a spell designed to erase magical disturbance. It was a concealment field, a disguise placed over the whole thing. Which meant, naturally, it would need to be observed from outside.

Feeling mildly foolish, Lira placed the concealment rune next to her heating enchantment and stepped backward until she exited the spell's area of influence. Then she looked again and grinned. It was perfect. The magical disturbance from the heating rune had vanished entirely. Or rather, more accurately, it now appeared completely ordinary. From outside the concealment field, the mana around the heating rune looked calm, stable, and unremarkable, as if the runes were not active at all.

The spell worked exactly as intended. Lira crouched thoughtfully beside the runes and began considering the practical applications. Larger bubbles were not ideal for personal use. A large personal concealment bubble would be dangerous. If someone physically entered the field and possessed magical perception, they might notice active magic hidden inside. A large bubble covering her whole alcove, however, would be perfect. It would secure the entire space with a single enchantment.

Combined with the stabilization spell, the two enchantments, when layered together, would synergize perfectly. One hid active spellcasting. The other cleaned up the aftermath. Lira felt deeply pleased with herself. Which naturally led to the next logical step. Creating and placing the enchantments in a way that would not be suspicious. She retrieved several sheets of decorative paper, most of which had once been letters before she stripped the ink from them using magic.

"Asatan. Tir. Kisar." The pages were cleaned to pristine blankness. Then she carefully drew both rune configurations onto the same sheet of paper, Mana Obfuscation and Mana Stabilization together side by side. Afterward, she folded the paper inward in precise patterns, hiding the runes inside and transforming the sheet into a simple bookmark design. Something practical, portable, and unremarkable in the context of a library.

Then she cast both spells with the intention of creating a bubble large enough to cover the whole alcove.

"Kisar. Maja. Tureth. Tarasana. Kurur."

"Kisar. Maja. Veshar. Tarasana. Kurur." She then slipped the dual-enchanted bookmark into her grand-uncle's calligraphy book. She had chosen that book because it was one of the Dowager Queen's personal books, and it contained dedication inscriptions from the author. If anyone somehow discovered the magical bookmark, the most obvious assumption would be that it had belonged to the former queen herself. She was a noble after all, and magic was part of her life.

It was safe to assume that she created the enchantment for the same reason she created the alcove: to be left alone in a private space, making her the perfect scapegoat. Lira created five more bookmarks, each with different pocket-space dimensions. One was large enough to cover the space behind her front desk. One was narrow and compact enough for personal use outside the library. The remaining three were moderate-sized utility fields for random positions throughout the building.

Each bookmark was hidden inside books belonging to the former queen's collection. A history book went to the history section with a bookmark hidden inside it. Another was placed in the fiction section. A book written by the former caretaker of the library went onto the shelf behind her front desk, and the one for personal use went into a personal journal she intended to fill with information about the library, helping justify taking a bookmark she had supposedly found lying around the library floor.

After all, she was just a simple maid. There was no reason anyone would believe she could have created the enchantments on her own. Lira watched as dust continued flowing obediently through the library into a bag placed neatly in a corner of the history section. Yet somehow, the mana remained stable, with no visible disturbances leaking through the concealed field. No magical anomalies accumulated either, as the mana was forcibly stabilized.

There were no obvious signs of enchantment beyond the suspiciously efficient movement of dust. She should be able to activate the spell each night and deactivate it each morning, and the library would never need to be dusted again. Lira leaned back in her office chair, deeply satisfied. At this rate, she could probably start moving flames in the kitchen, or using divination to look for magical primers near the noble quarters. No. Something more reasonable first. Internal magic.

Magical sensing outside the library should be the first step. She should learn to walk before she starts running.