white room

[thief of light]

Today is the seventh of Deep Winter, the third day of the tenday. The wooden floor boards are cold beneath my feet and the sun is still several hours beyond cresting over the city's skyline. Even so, the quiet bustle of the small hours of Waterdeep's morning provide a dull thrum of life just outside the window. People hustle through narrow streets on their way to their trades, the beggars starting to rouse from their alleys and the corner women leisurely strolling toward their dwellings. Activity all around except for in my room where I am the only movement aside from the soft, wheezy breath from my sister.

She sleeps in our bed still, the blue light of the morning highlights the line of drool to pool on the abused pillow 'neath her head. Sugary white curls frame her face at peaceful slumber, though I'd be hard pressed to call this awkward, lanky, sickly thing any embodiment of grace. I run my brush through my own curls, taming the russet mess of tresses up high to be ready for the day. There's no mirror to check my handiwork, but no one will be looking at me anyway.

Down the tight passage of stairs I come to what could be considered both our dining room and kitchen. A large beast of a brick oven dominates the room, sighing warmth into an otherwise cold household. My dad sits at the kitchen table, a brief case sat next to his seat, and a cigar crooked the corner of his mouth. He's what you'd expect of a baker. Stocky and barrel chested, broad arms and broader shoulders with a square face and tired eyes from early mornings. He does the lion share of the work in the kitchen, while my sister and I tend the front of the store during the day.

But today the brick oven's maw only lights with a dull orange glow, yet to be fully stoked, and dough left to proof and rise over night has yet to be prepared. He looks at me, dull sea glass eyes watch me as I stare at him and his cigar owlishly. Silence prevails in the kitchen aside from the soft crackle of embers. I can't see the expression on his face as shadows mask the whole of his intent, so instead I turn to my morning tasks. My dad watches me set into kneading dough, dragging along a wooden stool to wherever I needed to be to get the height I needed for the task. He made no effort to help, no criticism, no remarks. Instead he sat there and smoked, filling the morning with sweet ashy plumes.

As I'm easing kindlin into the oven I feel his heavy hand on my shoulder. I make the conscious decision not to look at him, for what reason I don't know. I focus on my work and I can feel the disappointment in his sigh. I don't understand his change in behavior, he always says I'm always 'too much' but he always says it. The silence is ill-boding, and it fills knots in my stomach.His hand ruffles my hair I worked on putting up, and he leaves the rest of his cigar on the oven's lip for me.

The bells on the front store door jingle: there's a pause.

"Make good choices, Paige."

When the door shut, the knots in my stomach popped and I ran to the store front. By then, he was long gone, like warm breath in the cold morning air.

[thief of light]

Today is the fourteenth of Tarsakh, second day in the tenday.

The streets of Waterdeep are still shaking off winter's chill in favor of the Storm Lord's rains. Snow mixes with the heavy rainfall in ugly grime slush clogging the gutters of the road. I used to like the rain and the way it smells, but now that I spend the day soaked and scrounging I find I don't like it much anymore. The weather hardly effects any of the Waterdhavians, who continue their day to day in their own hustle onto wherever they're going and who ever they're meeting. It doesn't matter my hair is long and messy, my shoes are soaked and water logged. No one is looking at me, anyway.

I get back to the bakery, big wooden boards have been put up on the windows and doors, official bank notices stamped and recognized by the local alderman litter the wooden board that blocks the front door. We didn't last a month with our charade before the collectors came, all dressed in crushed velvet with men dressed in oil drenched leathers. I'm thirteen, old enough to manage sweat house work or newspaper hawking and Amelina and I managed to convince the Watchman that came to escort us to the orphanage we had family to go to.

I think of a round faced aunt with lots of freckles, a tall and wiry uncle who laughs and prefers dark ales, and wonder if my family would be like that. It takes my mind off the cold that numbs my fingers as I squirm under a board and make my way inside the empty condemned building. The kitchen is long since empty save for the large open hearth, cold and dark now. A graveyard of our childhood that now served as our squatter's den. Snow white tresses spill out from under a stack of newspapers where Amelina sleeps like she did when we had beds.

Piles of arcane books, second hand and filled with pre-written notes litter her sleeping area. I set the prize of my walk by Amelina's cotton curls, a bottle of her tonic. Enough to get us through another week, but the odd jobs were getting scarce and snack foods couldn't be traded for potions. One of the tomes, the lettering on the front still with a dull glitter catches my eye. In the quiet of the carcass of our house, I flip through the pages. Each one decorated with an astounding pattern of squiggles, lines, curves and shapes that drift and shift like leaves atop a lazy river.

I'm the oldest, so I should know how to read. Maybe if I did I could've found some secret in all the paper work the collectors handed me, and found a way to keep things the way they were. Instead I'm good at climbing chimneys, throwing sacks of flour and chasing neighborhood cats. Amelina at least, shows some aptitude for magic, one that the local mage guild would be willing to foster if she passes her entrance exam. With her health as it is, she's nothing better to do than to read and study all day anyway, but after the incident with the failed flare cantrip and the neighborhood cat, I haven't been filled with hope. When I hear Amelina rouse, I force a smile.

"Mnh, Paige. Morning... what time is it?" Her voice is small, I forget sometimes she's the younger one with how tall she is now. "Past the fourteenth bell. You can't be up all night studying, we can't afford a cold." Amelina pays little heed to my scolding, instead responding with a broad grin. Her little fingers pluck the tome from my hands. "You'll change your tune in a second, sis. Watch this."

My legs fold underneath myself as I prepare myself for the incoming accident. "You're not going to set the house on fire right?" Her laugh isn't exactly comforting as she gets into what she calls her 'wizard sit', an awkward posture with squared shoulders and hands widely spread. Sugar curls cover half her smug grin (which I feel isn't safe at all) as her fingers begin to trace imaginary symbols in the air. Like a hushed secret she murmurs an incantation, a line of the book open before the smaller girl engraves in light. Anxiety hitches the breath in my throat as the spell slowly starts to take shape.

Slowly at first, a small dull orb forms between her palms. And with her sigh of the final syllables the form takes up a soft light. Our own personal star of cool blue light suspended with our breath in the silence of the husk of our kitchen.

[thief of light]

Today is the twenty second of Tarsakh, fifth in the tenday.

Amelina and I are dressed in the cleanest (but not the nicest) clothes we own, and we wait in a room with other children and their parents who are better dressed than we. The foyer to the local chapter of the High One doubles as the intake for the Academy of Magical Arts in the west quarter of the city. Short stone walls lit with windows carved out of the bricks and dim faeire lights give the stuffy interior a hollow and stiff atmosphere. There are hushed murmurs between parent and child, young apprentices waiting as we are to take our entrance exams. Some go over note cards and others anxiously twiddle sweaty fingers.

My sister squeezes my hand and I look to her, anxiety and uncertainty wide in her eyes. "Paige, uhm... Are we allowed to be here?" Her voice is smaller than normal, crushed under the empty and stagnant air. "Yeah, Amy. You're the real deal now. This is where the adventure starts!" I return her worried squeeze, and a nearby mother glares at me for speaking a few decibels above a whisper. Instead of returning the disapproving stare, I fix the snowy tresses escaped from the bun on my sister's head. "You look like a thousand crowns, Amy. You remember the technique, right?"

Her gaze trails elsewhere in the room, as if one of the portraits of old Academy Head Masters might have the answer written across their cravats. "Remember, the rabbit goes over the fence..." I make the gestures with my hands, one straight and flat before me, the other waving open over the line my arm made. "Then under, and then he hops up to the moon." Amelina watches my quiet performance, though, I can feel it, she isn't the only one in my audience. She follows the motions in smaller gestures to herself. Only when I feel myself getting comfortable in the moment, there is an interruption.

"Mosbrooke! To the desk."

I can feel the dozens of eyes on our backs as we stand up and cross what feels like miles of wooden flooring to get to the desk I only just see over. I've never been a good liar, but I'm sure someone told me that all good lies are based in truth, so, am I really lying?

The clerk on the other side of the desk does not look up from the files on his desk. I see pictures, and scribbles, but they drift from place to place. Instead I watch the gnarled hands of the old man, trembling under the weight of his flesh. Blue and silver robes drape from weary limbs, seemingly pinned to his chest by Azuthan brooch there. Like everything else in the foyer, his voice is slow and heavy. "Amelina Mosbrooke. Applying for... first year general entrance... Mnh..." Despite the unsteadiness of his hands, the clerk deftly switches the order of pages ordered on his desk. "And you must be her legal guardian, Paige Mosbrooke... Currently employed?"

The lie slips off my tongue easily. "Yes, sir. Under the Pinkertons Estate." There's a lengthy pause. Faeire light glares off the small lenses of his glasses, but still I can feel the heavy scrutiny of the ancient clerk as he inspects me. "Young, aren't you?" Amelina is pretending to not listen, my face feels hot, everyone is looking at me. I do the only thing I'm good at doing.

I laugh, its a sound I don't recognize but it the escaping air deflates the tension in my chest. My grin is a familiar feeling as my mouth pulls to an easy smile. If I think I'm charming I will be. "Thanks, that's really sweet of you to say." The lines around the clerk's face wrinkle, but I see a reflection of my smile seep into the lines of his mouth. He nods thoughtfully, and presses stamps into sheets of paper. "Mhmhm... Miss Amelina Mosbrooke, you may proceed to the exam hall c-two. Good luck." His sentiment is a hoarse exhale as he hands papers over the desk toward the smaller Mosbrooke. I reclaim my seat in the big empty room.

Other would be apprentices come and go, some leave the exam halls with wide and proud grins, while others meet their parents disappointed frowns with tears. Through the emotional storm of ups and downs the air remains still and an old candle slowly winds down to mark the time in colored wax. I think about my sister. About our dinner tonight. I think about employment and bills. I think about my mom, my dad, our old hearth in the kitchen. As my eyes start to droop I wonder if the maw of bricks would still be warm to sleep inside of, or if it would swallow me whole.

When I open my eyes I look to the candle-clock, hoping the suspense and anticipation would be realized soon.

It's only been eight minutes.