The main character is named Kellen. He's a mage in training in a city run by mages. It's safe and prosperous and generally a good place to live. But its all very well regulated to the point of being oppressive. Kellen is in the market and is just sorta bored with it. Some Mage comes through and ruins everything by stopping traffic and making it annoying for everyone else. So Kellen decides to go the low market. Maybe he'll find something new there. There's nothing new in mage city. It's the same as it was five hundred years ago and will likely be the same five hundred years in the future. In the low market Kellen finds a fun old knife rester that has unicorn heads on the ends. He's super duper looking forward to using it and getting disapproving looks from his stuffy cold oppressive father.
He also goes to a book seller hoping to find old copies of his mage textbooks. His desire is two fold, first, if they're old and beat up, it's OK for him to write notes in the margins. His dream would be to find books that some other student long ago wrote their one notes in the margins. He is successful in this. He also finds three books that seem kinda fancy, leather bound but thin. Books of the sun, moon and stars. They appear to be hand written magic books. When he goes to pay for them the shop keep asks if he has kids. The fancy books look like children's books to him. Curious.
His dad is the HMIC. They're very wealthy and they have a large house that his dad rarely goes to cause he's busy with work. It a cold and clean and has a large staff to keep it that way. His dad always has the servants make Kellen a cold bath in the hopes it will encourage him to learn the fire magic he needs to heat the water. This far all Kellen has managed is to light some candles. He eats all alone in silence at the scheduled meal time cause his dad is at work and even if he wasn't they would still eat in silence cause he doesn't tolerate talking during meal time.
Having his domestic affairs taken care if he goes to his dads library to see if he can find any reference to these fancy books he found. He does, they are banned books as they are wild magic. There's something about this magic and women that's unclear but hints that this oppressive society is also Male dominated.
He's trying to read the banned books but is finding it hard to find the magic in the banned magic books. Thus far they seem mostly philosophy books.
Also, Kellen isn't happy. He doesn't even know anyone that he thinks is happy. Especially his A hole dad.
ch 2 dark lightning pg 38
This chapter is to make you aware that Kellen's dad is a dick. A classist mesoginist jerk face. His job (like most high level burocratix jobs) is mostly paper work. Then his assistant comes to tell him that he needs to deal with an important thing. A rich family is having sorcery problems. Its their daughter. She's got magic powers. The prevailing theory is women can't be mages cause they can't control it cause of all their emotions. So after a brief tall with the family he uses his magic to burn away the parts of her brain that do magic. He also removes all her memories of ever having done magic and replaces them with memories of doing music so she's got something to focus on. He's very worried that if any memory is left she will come after him or his assistant or Kellen for revenge.
ch 3 The books of Wild Magic pg 54
Kellen has been reading the books of qild magic and seems to like it better than his usual magic studies. He's being tutored by his dad's assistant and its a lot of memorizing and repeatedly writing symbols. The assistant tells him a secret about the city mages that do civil service work, they take magical power from common folk and use it. They never use their own power unless they absolutely have to. This upsets Kellen and he runs away. He decides to change into grubby clothes and head down to the docks hoping to get the straight truth of things from people that aren't part of the city's power structure. He overhears a ship captain talking to a would be sailor. The sailor is sad cause when he told his family he wanted to be a sailor they were all like go then, you're not part of our family anymore. The captain explains this is a good thing. The family could have said no, you have to stay and then the magic walls in the harbor that keep the bad weather out would have stopped their ship from leaving. Kellen is all psyched to hear this as he has long suspected the powers that be stopped people from leaving the city. Suspicion confirmed.
ch 4 Music in Chains 74
Kellens dad is running council meetings, which are mostly about oppressing the masses. People come with some new thing they want to sell or art they want to perform and most are told no. Mage city is all about keeping the status quo.
Kellen goes home and is all prepared to sneak in the garden door. But he can't find the key. He does wild magic to find the key. He starts walking and realizes its the magic making him walk. It takes him to a court yard with a crying girl. Her cat is stuxk in a tree. Kellen climbs the tree, gets the cat and falls down. But he is miraculously unharmed. Beneath his fallen body he finds a birds nest. In said birds nest he finds his key.
He let's himself back into the house. His dad is there and yells at him for skipping out on his lesson with dad's assistant. Then he yells more about how Kellen better shape up, cause he need a a man and his heart is set on you. Kellen does his best Dawson impression and gives him the ole I don't want your life.
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