Ask Luna #64

From: Elaine Felicity

Hi Luna,

been taking a trip down your memory lane – one question:

How did you get Alex out of hospital after he got stabbed?

I need details!

🙂

Uh, I’m not sure the statute of limitations has run out on that one yet.

We did try talking to them. But once Anne had a look at Alex, she told us that he was going to be dead inside of an hour, and then that hospital guy wouldn’t listen when we tried to explain. If he’d just let us take Alex away, everything would have gone smoothly. And it wasn’t as though anyone got hurt.

From: Ryan

Congratulations on becoming a Journeyman Mage! Have you been approached by other mages for anything yet? And have you chosen your mage name? If so, would you be willing to share your choice?
Thank you

A couple of mages have approached me, but not with anything I really want to do. To be honest, they haven’t really been treating me like a mage at all – it’s more like they think I’m one in name only. It’s kind of annoying. Haven’t figured out what to do about it yet.

I’ve been turning over ideas for names. Most mages go for some kind of name tied in to what they can do, or what they want other people to think they can do. Others go for some historical mage they want to emulate or something. Problem is, neither really appeals to me all that much. I never cared much about mage history, and given how mages treat me, I’m not sure if I really want to emulate them anyway. And naming myself after what my curse does would just be depressing – is that really what I want to go by for the rest of my life?

Maybe I ought just to stick with Luna. But that feels kind of unsatisfying as well. I dunno.

From: Vancefreed

Alex is obviously very afraid of Richard. But he is not omniscient and has to have flaws — can’t Richard using his skills and magecraft hold his own.
And the leading light mages seem hardly any different in practice that the dark. Is Richard preparing to take the gloves off and find ways to be feared and more powerful himself because he is getting ever more boxed in.

I’m assuming you’re getting Alex and Richard’s names mixed up there.

I think the problem Alex has with ‘taking the gloves off’ is that the whole reason he split away from Richard was because he DOESN’T want to be as ruthless as Richard is. I mean, if he was willing to knife someone for a profit, he wouldn’t have left in the first place. That said, trying to be ethical doesn’t do you much good if it just gets you squashed like a bug.

I dunno. I’m kind of glad he’s the one who has to figure this out and not me, to be honest, because I don’t have any great answers. I mean, Alex could have improved his situation a ton plenty of times before now. All he’d have had to do would be say ‘yes’ to Levistus or to Richard, and do what they told him. But then, that’s the problem, isn’t it?

From: David

Give what we learn about Crystal at the end of Taken, why at the beginning of the book is she trying hard to enlist Alex’s help?

Heh. If you’d spent as much time around Light mages as I have, you already know the answer.

Think about it. Crystal is (was) a Light mage. So what she knew about Alex at the time is what all the other Light mages ‘knew’ about Alex. First, he was the (willing) ex-apprentice of Richard, second, he didn’t want to join the Council, and third, he’d been involved in the suspicious disappearances of not one but two Light mages, Griff and Belthas. Put that together, and what do you get? You get something between “shady mercenary type” and “assassin”. That was who Crystal thought she was hiring.

These sorts of reputations don’t go away fast. It’s been years, and I still get Light apprentices who are freaking terrified to go near me. Between being Alex’s apprentice, and Anne’s friend, they all assume I’m some sort of black-widow-in-training. We laugh about it, but it does get annoying at times.