From: Riley
Luna, you seem to argue with Vari a lot. Do you think he likes you or are you two just too much alike?
Yes.
From: Kurt Von Bosse
Hello Luna,
I have a few questions for you. Some are about you; I hope you don’t find any of them too personal. A couple of these questions are not directly about you and you may not know the answer to them, but as they directly relate to you, you may want to do some research for your own possible benefit.
Alex has told us that to his mage’s sight your curse looks like a silver mist that hovers about you. However, not all mages can detect the presence of your curse. He has also said that there is no sensation caused when being touched by your curse. We know these last two statements are true because when Delio and Kazhad were tracking you around Camden Market and followed you and Alex into the car park area, Alex witnessed your curse reach out and disrupt whatever focus item Kazhad was using to track you with. Had either of them seen a trace of silver mist they could have simply followed it back to you. Also during the Fate Weaver incident that creep Griff Blackstone would never have laid hands on you if he had seen or felt your curse in action.
My first question is whether you know if all mages who can perceive your curse see it in the same way that Alex does? For example, I was wondering if a sound mage might perceive your curse as a deep vibration which gets louder and more dissonant the closer she got to you. Have you ever asked any of your friends about this subject? More important to you, do you know why some mages can perceive your curse and others cannot? Do you think it just depends on whether a mage has really good mage sight or is it possible that certain types of mages are less likely to have that ability in the first place? Delio is a water mage, Kazhad a death mage and Griff was an earth mage. If you knew or could find out that certain types of mages are less likely to be able to recognize your curse and its potential to harm them, it might be something that could be used to your advantage.
Now to the really personal questions; Luna, the people who get touched by your curse don’t feel anything, but what about you? Do you feel your curse touching someone when you are not in direct physical contact with them yourself? Also, do you see a silver mist as Alex describes or do you see something completely different? Do you perceive your curse moving about you in anyway besides your sight? Finally, I would like to know if there are certain times or situations when you can perceive your curse being more active, even if you aren’t looking at it.
(If I’ve misspelled anyone’s name, it’s because I only have the audiobooks.)
First, the easy one: whether people can see my curse is just a matter of how good their magesight is. Though there’s also an element of knowing how to do it: if you know what to look for then that’s one thing, but if you don’t know that you’re supposed to be looking for it in the first place then even mages with pretty high-level magesight might not notice. Familiarity with chance magic seems to have a lot to do with it, too.
How people see it: like you guessed, it varies. Most mages perceive it visually, but I think that’s because that’s how mages get trained. I see it as a silver mist, though not as clearly as Alex does. But here’s the thing – I only started ‘seeing’ it after Alex had been training me for a while. So the really interesting question is: did I learn to see it that way because that’s just how it is, or because that’s how he sees it? I don’t know, but I’ve got a feeling it might be the second.
As for how it feels for me, I can feel my curse without looking at it, or even if my eyes are closed. I couldn’t when I started, but nowadays it’s more like toes or fingers. You know how if you’ve been lying in one place for a while your arm might go slightly numb and you can’t quite feel where it is, but as soon as you move it you know instantly? It’s like that. And yes, I can feel it when it touches someone else, but that’s very very hard to describe . . . I’m not sure if there are any words. Draining without losing anything, maybe. Funnily enough, the one that took me the longest was figuring out when my curse was more active, just because the more active it is, the less I’m likely to be aware of it, if you know what I mean. I’ve been working on it, but it’s hard.
From: Nim
Luna,
I understand you are busy and so I appreciate any answer you can jot down.
The encyclopaedia section on Space Magic says “While space magic can be adapted to be used as a weapon, it’s not really what it’s designed for”
Have you ever seen space magic used as a weapon or has Alex ever spoken of it? Are we talking about actual destructive effects based on the warping of space? It seems tremendously powerful. Thank you for reading my question.
I’ve seen a lot of space magic tricks that involve moving things around one way or other, but I’ve only once seen it used directly as a weapon. It was this crazy space mage locked off in a shadow realm, and he had some spell that sort of crumpled up space, like it was a piece of paper. Anything that was inside the radius, the same thing happened to it that would happen if they were drawings on the paper. You really did not want it to hit you.
The good news is that I’ve never seen any other space mages do it, and the times I’ve asked teachers, they told me that it wasn’t possible. So I think there was something special about the situation. Either it was a property of the shadow realm, or it was some special spell that he developed on his own with some seriously powerful fuel. Whichever it was, it doesn’t seem to be standard issue, thankfully.
Thank you Luna!