Calliope accepted the dark red wine she was handed gracefully, sipping approvingly at the dry, sour vintage. It must have been something south from Kadar or Imbresh, though she hadn't asked. The servers were evidently giving them a moment to consider their orders and were maintaining a proper distance. It was an odd sensation to talk openly about what she did, so much of her life was kept in the shadows, either by necessity or by design. Well considering she was going to kill him after the date, she supposed there was no harm in sharing.

“Well, the choice of career options for blood magicians is smaller than you think. As you probably know, blood magic is a forbidden school, so none of the legitimate Magic Guilds will teach it.” Most people with magical potential had a particular school to which they were drawn, perhaps evocation and divination and could manage spells in other schools only with difficulty, if at all. Blood magic was a potent and extremely rare calling, most people who were born with the gift managing to kill themselves very early on. Like its darker cousin, necromancy, blood magic was forbidden because of the terrible and insidious perils it posed. In eons passed there had been Empires carved out by wizards who spilled the blood of thousands to power their great and terrible rites. These days the Arcane Assembly suppressed blood magic users, somewhat hypocritically as most of them had tried a few spells at some point. The Temple Cities were worse of course, sending out the Gilded or the Dustmen to snuff out blood magicians wherever they could be found. Calliope had been born with the gift, but her ability in other schools was too slight that she could ever hope to gain an education in the arcane arts, guilds only being interested in those they thought would be able to repay the debt in coin or political influence.

“When my gifts first manifested themselves I was taken in by a cult, they used me as an assassin for their own ends, got me some basic training,” she continued taking another sip of wine. Most of that training had been in the form of dusty grimoires, half of which had been ancient religious propaganda and the other half of which had been riddled with errors and misinformation.

“Eventually, they wanted services I wouldn’t provide, and I decided that I could make my own way without all the tiresome theology.” That had been a revelation to them. They had other mages among their little coven of course but she had been with them for years at that point, ample time to learn the subtle truths hidden among all the pious nonsense.

“Plus,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper, “it is really fun.” She leaned back on her chair slightly, enjoying herself more than she would have thought.

 

“What about you Neil, what was it that you did that caused the Syndicate to cash in one of the markers that I owe them? I don’t mean to boast but I am rather an exclusive service, they don’t whistle me up for every little thing.”