Excerpt: Magical Theory

"Magic," Jacob replied absently, returning his attention to the book.

"Oh. Really?" Simon asked, echoing Jacob's earlier question. The way he said it made it sound so prosaic.

"Uh huh." He turned another page.

"No lie?" Simon prodded. It wasn't often that any sort of magician traveled the lines, let alone ended up in the baggage carriage. That lot usually took to air ships and the like, away from the 'excess population'. And usually they were old, not young and attractive and sitting five feet from him.

Jacob gave up reading and closed his book again, "It's a variation of a fire calling spell," he explained, "Less likely to catch my pages on fire."

"Wicked." Simon considered his next question. Mama said it was rude to ask people what they were reading, but he figured other questions should be okay, right? "How's it work?"

Jacob blinked at him, and thought about it for a moment. "It just does." He said, finally.

"Nothing just works," Simon protested, waving his hands a bit, "Everything has to have some sort of working principles, surely."

Jacob shrugged, "Magical theory was never one of my strong suits." He held up the slightly battered paper-back, the title of which glowed slightly and read Magical Theory, a Treatise by Alexander Eddington. "I've been working my way through this for days, and I still can't make heads nor tails of what the hell he thinks he's saying."

"Oh. That's boring." Simon said, frowning at the answer. This Jacob wasn't very social, was he? He pulled his beaten up and tarnished pocket watch out and checked the time. If his internal clock was right, they should be nearing Belmont station.

"You should head back to your seat soon." He said, swinging his watch idly, "We should be hitting Belmont in about half an hour to take on more passengers, and they'll be loading more luggage in, so you don't want to get caught here, see?" He offered his companion in skulking a friendly smile.

"Thanks," Jacob smiled back, tentatively. Ah, so he was just shy. Well, Simon could work with that. Jacob went to put his book into his jacket pocket, and then apparently changed his mind. "Here," He held the book out to Simon, "Maybe you can make more sense of this than I can."

Simon made to protest, "But--"

"I have two copies," Jacob said, shaking his head, " And believe me. It isn't generosity; I never want to see the book again."

"Oh. Thanks?" Simon accepted the book, and flipped through the pages, which were difficult to read in the dark, now that they didn't glow.

"My name's in the front, if you ever decide to return it." Jacob said, as he stood and straightened the sleeves of his jacket, "Please, don't."