My Spellbook Is Learning Bad Habits

How it begins

Leila Venn's spellbook copied her handwriting, her pronunciation and, by the end of the first week, her excuses.

PRACTICE DEFERRED DUE TO ESSENTIAL RESEARCH, it wrote across the page.

Leila looked at the biscuit crumbs on her desk. 'That is a generous description.'

The book added a footnote about the importance of rest. She shut it before it could quote her conversation with the dormitory kettle.

At thirty-three, she was the second-oldest apprentice in the foundation class and the only one who had needed a payment plan for her wand. Returning to study had sounded brave when people said it at her leaving party. It felt less brave at midnight, with three failed light spells and an assessment in the morning.

Across the room, Mateo Bell's book shone with immaculate blue margins. Mateo had been a carpenter. He lined up his pens like tools and never appeared to lose an argument with his own stationery.

'How do you make it so tidy?' Leila asked.

He closed the cover too quickly. 'Practice.'

Her book opened itself. PRACTICE IS A BROADLY DEFINED TERM.

'You are not helping,' she told it.

A bell rang in the corridor. Every book displayed the same notice: ADAPTIVE SKILL TRIAL, DAWN. INDEPENDENT CASTING REQUIRED.

Leila's stomach sank. The books were supposed to learn their owners' working habits, then assist them. Hers had learned how to appear busy while avoiding things she feared. It could now postpone a spell in six sophisticated ways and cast none of them.

Mateo reached for his blue book. For a moment, a page escaped. Beneath the elegant margins, Leila saw a forest of red corrections moving as though trying to hide.

His hand closed over it.

She looked at her own untidy book, which had begun drafting a request for an extension. Then she tore out a clean practice sheet.

'Perhaps,' she said, 'we should show them a different habit.'