Chapter 11

Rapha’s office was as reserved and dignified as the mega-mage herself. Three of the walls were lined with books and scrolls from top to bottom. There were so many books and scrolls that the walls appeared to be wallpapered with a very strange, uneven, bookshelf design. The fourth wall was taken up by spice and chemical racks.

Rapha seemed to have a sample of every spice or chemical that had ever existed. The spice and chemical racks were separated by a large, ornate bay window in front of which a telescope stood. Bartz knew that this telescope had to be older than he was, yet it shined like it was new.

The floor and ceiling were dotted with various pentagrams of triangles, diamonds, and stars. Bartz wasn’t really sure what purpose the pentagrams on the ceiling could possibly serve, but he figured it would be wiser not to ask.

There didn’t seem to be a computer, or for that matter any sort of machine from the last 200 or so seasons, anywhere to be found in the roo