There were others out on the balcony. They waved to them, but Leo led her down to an empty patio. There, he spread the blanket down and took a seat on it, inviting her to join him.
“It should be starting soon. You may be able to see a few even now,” he said, but he wasn’t looking up at the sky. He had opened his rucksack and was removing a number of items from within it: his leather notebook and ink pen; the brass device from earlier, which still looked slightly bent out of shape; a silver locket on a delicate but tarnished chain; a children’s doll with a painted porcelain face; a large hollow horn with elaborate carvings; a dagger with a rusty blade; and a lighter made of dwarven steel, worn from use. “I need to take my baseline readings,” he explained as he began scribbling in the journal, waving his device over the other items.
“What are these?” asked Ceri, picking up the doll. Its hair looked to be made of corn silk, and it gave Ceri a deep sense of unease looking at its smirking face.
“Be careful with that,” said Leo, grabbing the doll back then smiling in apology at the hasty gesture. “Each of these objects gives off a powerful—and, more importantly, measurable—magic field. I found them in charity shops in Norgate mainly, except for the lighter. That one I found right here in High House.”
"They’re enchanted?”
“I believe so. What I’m trying to understand is how the magic is stored in them. How it ebbs and flows, how it recharges. I have a theory that powerful magic events, events like the meteorshower, recharge them in some way. I’m hoping to measure it tonight.”
Ceri hadn’t realized that meteor showers had anything to do with magic. She’d heard superstitions, but she thought they were just that. “I’ve never felt anything particularly special during a meteor shower.”
“Have you seen one?”
“No,” she admitted. The castle was in an open area, but it was so close to Arcas Dyrne that the night sky never got truly dark there. “You said you wanted my help. What did you want me to do?”
“Just something small like what you did before. The spell you used to get the tea coffee out of your shirt, or the one you used on your shoes. I’d like to measure it before and during the meteor shower to see if there’s a difference.”
That seemed simple enough. Ceri was curious to see the measurements herself. She’d never heard of measuring magic before. “It’s your own design?” she asked, picking up the device.
“Yes,” said Leo. He smiled, pleased to be asked. “I call it a magimeter. It’s a modification of the devices we use to measure ‘lectricity. It has a small gem inside I found from talking to a shaman in a dwarven mine. They use gems like it to find certain rare ores. Mithril, for one.”
He was really quite clever, despite his penchant for attracting trouble. She watched him as he carefully held the magimeter to each object in turn, marking the readings down into a table.
“Strange,” he muttered.
“What is it?”
“The locket has never read this high before. I’m worried I may have broken the magimeter during our collision earlier.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ceri. If she hadn’t been nosing around where she wasn’t meant to be, that wouldn’t have happened.
“Entirely my fault,” he said. “Something in these objects, possibly in the magimeter itself, interacts with the library in a bad way. It’s…an opinionated place, and it likes to make its opinions known.”
“By throwing books at you?” Ceri remembered the library’s choice of books when she was there and blushed. Perhaps it had known her own mind better than she did.
Maybe now if they returned together, the library would offer her a book on friendship. She hoped it would, at least.
“And also by turning off the lights. Ah, that’s more like it,” he said, taking a third reading, this time leaning a bit away. “Perhaps it’s interference.” He gestured to Ceri’s shoes.
“Oh,” said Ceri. “I can turn them back.”
“Just a moment,” he said. “I’ll measure it when you do. I don’t want to waste your energy. Then you can flatten them again during the meteor shower.”
“But those aren’t exactly the same things,” said Ceri. Her science tutor had been particularly insistent on valid experimental design. “I’ll extend one heel now, then the other during the meteor shower. So it’s the same, you see? I can sit them out of the way so you can get the rest of your measurements.”
Leo beamed at her. Gods, his smile was bright. “That’s absolutely right. Very good thinking, Ceri.”
It felt entirely too good to hear his praise.Friends,Ceri told herself.I’m only here to make friends. Or I’m only here to study. Something! Stop it. Stop melting when he looks at you.
Ceri did as she had planned, doing her best not to notice how close he was to her when he waved the magimeter as she gestured near the heel.
“Hmm,” he said as he scribbled down the readings. “More power than I’d thought for such a spell. I’ll be intrigued to see how the readings change.”
He moved the objects to the opposite side of where Ceri had left the shoes and lay back on the blanket.
“Don’t you want to measure me again?”
