Amy wandered outside the meeting place Beatrice had led her to, leaning against a wall, the Cloak still shrouding her, albeit waning in potency. All the while she waited for Beatrice to come chase her, she pondered. Was it too hasty for her to explode at them like that? She was throwing away precious resources by doing so, and only antagonised Beatrice further than she already had in her strange behaviour. And without their help, could she even steal the robe?

"I'm sorry Felin," She sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"Whatever for?"

"For getting your hopes up. Without their help... I don't know if I can get the robe."

"Oh that. Well, Amy, although I don't mean this as a way to put doubt on your abilities, but I didn't have much hope to begin with," He smiled sadly from upon her shoulder. "And even still, you might have made the right decision."

"I wasn't too hasty? I didn't really give them much of a chance to prove themselves."

"And sometimes, my dear Apprentice, all it takes to ruin something like that is a bad first impression. Which was exactly what that group made."

"I suppose," Amy pursed her lips, tapping her finger against the wall, an unnerving worry slowly creeping up on her. Unable to take it, she voiced it, "Do you think... that my mental instability could be why I reacted so suddenly? I mean, it fits, right? I process everything faster now, so I come to quicker decisions. To them, it must've felt like I barely talked to them but... it was like I had known them for hours by the time they started to argue properly. I had gotten them all figured out. Add that to having the enhancements back in place, I might've... made a mistake in my reasoning."

"I won't deny that what you said isn't possible or not unreasonable either. However, Amy, you are a Mage. You must be decisive about these sorts of things, and coming to a decision in that length of time is something even expected for an Apprentice. You must wield your mind in the most efficient ways. And what better way than to cut down on wasted time?""

"Regardless... it must've felt horrible for Beatrice. I had been hopeful going into that meeting, and in less than fifteen minutes, my opinion did a one-eighty."

"Well lucky for you then that you'll still be in contact with her. You left that option open for yourself at the end, didn't you? It's not like you've completely locked yourself out of any assistance. The primary collaborators you would've worked with are all still there. If you stayed with the group, only you and Beatrice would've been there with feet on the ground, the others working elsewhere."

Pulling her Cloak closer, staring deeper into its billowing abyss, Amy waited in silence for quite some time. It wasn't until what might've been half an hour later that Beatrice finally stepped out. By then, her mana was drained almost to dregs, almost over the edge into mana exhaustion. So it wasn't surprising when Beatrice noticed an inconspicuous Amy trying her best and failing to be sneaky by the end of the alleyway and decided to head her way.

"...Amy? Are... I'm sorry about them. I've given them a good talking to," Beatrice rubbed the back of her neck, not meeting her eyes.

"It's fine," Amy said awkwardly, failing to find a proper sentence in her embarrassment. "I... I still wish to work with you, by the way. I hope I made that clear before I left."

"I noticed, and... it'll be harder with just Brook but we can make it work. It's not the end of the world."

"...I'm sorry for overreacting back there. I just didn't expect it to be... that bad," Amy grimaced.

"I didn't expect that either. I thought with you being there they'd be more well behaved but- either way, it's probably for the best we don't involve them. It would involve gang politics too much, especially with Tod and Harris."

"That's... good, then," Amy replied, again struggling for the right words.

"When do you want to meet next to coordinate this then?" Beatrice cocked her head.

"Honestly, with what I've already seen, I believe I can pull it off already," Amy announced, the blueprints and plans stuck in her mind with perfect clarity from her enhancements.

"At least for me then it'll be nice to confirm the plan," She laughed off-kilter.

"Tomorrow then?"

"That's... quite soon. Maybe give me another day?"

"That's fine by me. We'll meet at the usual place, same time as always," Amy nodded, standing up straight and backing away.

"And Brook? Should he come too?"

"...Yes, if you believe he would be useful."

"Alright then," Beatrice smiled slightly. "You better get going. I was supposed to have left a couple minutes ago and we stagger our exits just in case someone has any ideas. Harris will be out soon and I imagine you don't want to get caught by him like this."

"Indeed. See you then, Beatrice," Amy said, turning away and heading her way back to the inn. Beatrice lingered there, watching her back as she went. Then, with a shiver, she left as well.

* * *

"I need better Spells," Amy sighed as she flopped onto her bed, her things tossed carelessly to the side. Using the mana she had recovered in the walk there, Amy manifested her Record and worked on imprinting the plans she had seen onto them before she deactivated her enhancements.

"Well there's a couple I can point out to you needing immediately," Felin sauntered up to her, smirking. "First is perfecting that Mirror Spell of yours and then the ones to counter the mana signature detectors."

"The mana detector one should be easy. Just a more in-depth version of the Concealing Shield," Amy said, Felin nodding in affirmation. "The Mirror Walk Spell will be a bit more complex. I've only drafted a few iterations of the Spellform, and none of them include protections, let alone actually testing them out."

"You might as well start simple then," Felin suggested.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Do you have any higher Tier Unknowable Spells rattling around in there for me to use?" Amy smirked.

"Well, I could give you something..." Felin smirked, "But perhaps it would be better for you to create your own."

"Really?"

"Anything I give you wouldn't be directly useful for your task and may be ineffective compared to what you'd conceive. Also, it's good practice."

"Alright, I'll see what I can scrounge up then."

Turning her attention inwards, Amy began the familiar process of attuning to Unknowable, her mind swirling with ideas. There's of course simply a higher Tier version of Concealing Shield, deepening the effects of the Unknowable workings already in it. But that may not be enough. It needs to not just block the transfer of information between the inside and the outside of the shield but also maintain an illusion of the outside. Having simply 'nothing' exist outside it might set off an alarm. So, an inverted Concealing Shield with some amount of Illusion? Well, Illusion is a bit... rubbish. Perhaps a nuanced application of Fae then? A deeper trick of ignorance forced upon those inside the barrier. Maybe that could be the name. Barrier of Ignorance. Or maybe Ward? Probably better just to stick with the Shield naming convention. A Tier 4 Spell, then: Shield of Ignorance.

Whilst all these thoughts swirled around her head, Amy's well-practiced Magecraft turned towards a tinge of Fae, that of plunging the audience of the stage of the world behind the darkness of those curtains. Rather they themselves be ignorant to the insides, they shall be ignorant to the outside, the great curtains concealing all. All it takes is a bit of showmanship from the great dancer, the director, the Witch, to add the finishing touches on the trickery, and the audience becomes ensorcelled. Mana swam out of Amy the second she opened her eyes, resplendent in green and purple light, simultaneously blindingly bright and deceivingly dull. There, just as the mana was about to transform into a full working, she honed her ideas further. The target of the ignorance will become one with their own world inside the bubble, and care not for the outside. For them, it might as well be as if anything going on outside did not exist. It was... Unknowable.

Spilling out from here and latching onto Felin, a translucent purple barrier grasped the cat mid-air in its claws, swallowing him up. From the outside, Amy could see well the half-panicked Felin looking around and studying the Magick surrounding him and trying to see through it. All the while, Amy moved around, watching Felin's attention closely. Her sneaking suspicion was only confirmed when Felin looked to the spot Amy was once in, not where she was now, and spoke.

"Can you let me out of this working now, my dear Apprentice?"

As soon as the Magick dissipated, mana deaspecting and swirling into tiny fractals, Felin's head whipped over to where Amy now stood, his eyes widening.

"I honestly didn't expect that to work on you," Amy admitted freely.

"...Me neither. Maybe the Tier of this form is limiting me in that aspect," Felin grumbled. "I am only 'Tier 4' after all."

"Still, a bit surprising," Amy murmured, with Felin harrumphing as he took a seat on the bed. "You reckon that'll work then."

"It needs slight refinement, but yes, it could work."

"Perfect."

And, to her dismay, there was not much else to do other than turn her attention to what she dreaded the most. The Mirror Spell. In a place like the museum, whilst she could sneak in using ordinary techniques and her Witch's Cloak, it wouldn't remove the possibility of something unexpected catching her. She needed a way outside of the bounds the museum set for her. And what better place to hide was there other than the glass of the display cases, the stained tapestries of the cathedral, and the reflections of the tiled floor. It would be the perfect escape too. If a guard or Mage came, she'd be able to hide in the mirror world, and hide as the reflections of those who came, using her Monstrous Visage to disguise herself.

Fine, Amy moaned. I guess I'll have to.

"Felin, keep an eye out for me, yeah?"

"Of course, my dear apprentice."

Her Record flipped through its pages by itself as it floated up to Amy's open hand, until it finally settled on her latest iteration of the Spell's runes, her fourth. Summoning her courage, Amy began her Magecraft. It still felt somewhat alien, to work her way up to Elemental Glass, the Witch's dance still awkward and unpractised yet far more refined than the awkwardness that was her last attempt. It was the same even all up until it was time for the audience to play their part. As the audience's lives were reflected in the dancer's routine, finding harmony with them and becoming one with them, the curtains did not quite descend completely upon the world. Rather, it danced around it as well, swirling around the pair of reflections, always spectating, and never interfering. No longer was it clear where the delimitation between real and reflection lay. So when the Witch descended unto the world, the stage, to forever bind the two halves of the reflection together, she did not return unto the dancer. The Witch descended into both worlds, to become the Amy in reality, and the monster in the mirror. With a shatter of magical might, the two halves became not separate, but whole.

For that was what was missing in the Magick before. Amy did not want to actually become a part of that Mirror World, a resident of its horrifying twisted reality, subject to its rules and inhabitants. All that Amy wanted was to Walk among them. To be a tourist in the world of reflections, not a living part of it. So, rather than let the Witch reside in only one part of the world, she was allowed to reside in both, walking the edge between them. That, there, would be her protection. When Amy took the step into the mirror, she would still be rooted in reality somewhat, so that she could be shielded from its terror.

It wasn't surprising then that when Amy came to, her Magecraft already finished and manifesting in her Spellcraft, that Amy was already partly into the mirror in her room, her head the last part of her to enter. Slipping her entire being in, the Witch couldn't help but grin.

While the Mirror World twisted and broke apart of the edges, no longer was the inverted world mind-shatteringly horrible, but something far more solid in nature, as a part of the real world had seeped in and stolen some of its ethereality. The boundaries of the Mirror World were far more defined too, no longer ending in terrifying gaping abysses of Unknowable manifestations clawing at her soul. In their stead lay the darkness of shadow, that of Unknowable. Amy could still feel them, lurking in there, but they were asleep, this level of Spellwork not deep enough to rouse them to action. Yet she could still feel that all it would take for them to wake would be to take just another step into that darkness, and sink deeper into the mirror. Felin's reflection, dead as always, felt more malleable to her here, as well. It existed, yes, but was but a virtual image of the him in reality, not some fake statue of him. Tentatively, Amy swept a hand through the cat and found the image waning, as if she could step into its place and shadow the source of its being. Of course, she'd still be her, the Witch in the mirror, and not a cat, but for a normal person's reflection? Replacing their reflection's visage in true was just another Spell away.

Finally satisfied, Amy turned around and, ignoring the shadows where the Unknowable dwelled, left the world behind her and returned to reality. There, Felin floated in the air, a proud smile on his face, his eyes glossier than usual. Amy imagined a similar expression adorned her face too.

"Congratulations, Amy. This is a proper piece of Spellcasting."

"The Tier?"

"It's not as close to Tier 5 as it was before; it's firmly in Tier 4 now."

"Good. That was partly the goal after all," Amy smiled wider.

"It was a bit strange, seeing you as a reflection in the mirror walking around without you actually being there in the room. You also looked... like you do when you wear your Monstrous Visage. Not like yourself," Felin frowned slightly as he recounted his watch.

"That's... to be expected," Amy answered cryptically. Although I am the Witch, she belongs in that world more than I ever could. It's only fitting then that she is who I am in there, and not merely the Apprentice Amy Wachlund. As she thought some more things through, with a gasp, she came to a realisation. Squinting her eyes at Felin in anger, "Did you just insinuate that Monstrous Visage wasn't a proper piece of Spellwork?"

"Now, now, my dear apprentice, I meant nothing of the sort," He chuckled, his eyes mocking.

"I worked hard on that Spell, you know I did!"

"Well, you know my opinions on how you came about making that working into a proper Spell."

"If you put it like that..."

"It's a good Spell, Amy. Some of its edges need to be rounded off a little, but it's basically the best you're going to get at your current Tier. And have you decided on a name yet?"

"...I think Mirror Walk will do."

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