Septimus wakes up in the middle of the night. He takes a stale piece of bread and eats it quietly, so he doesn't wake up Arcadia. Opening the door quietly and slowly, Septimus leaves the small house and begins his walk to the coliseum. He checks every alleyway, around every corner, just to make sure there are no beasts lurking, or murderers waiting.

Once Septimus enters his training room, his eyes are met with an interesting sight. Vitus is there, attacking the wooden dummy with a glowing sword. The dummy is repeatedly slashed to pieces...and repeatedly heals itself.

Septimus stands in the doorway, watching intently. He curiously steps forward and Vitus freezes, his sword no longer glowing. He turns, quickly, and places the tip of his sword to Septimus's throat.
"What are you doing here?" Vitus growls. "You shouldn't go out at night."

"I know! But I woke up and I had nothing to do, so I decided to come here!" Septimus explains. "Please lower your sword."

"Did you see anything?" Vitus wonders, not lowering his sword. Septimus opens his mouth then closes it. "Did you?"

"I saw your sword glowing and you breaking the dummy as it repaired itself," Septimus finally answers. Vitus sighs and lowers his sword. "What was that?"

"Since you've found out, I might as well tell you. I was using magic."

"I thought no one was able to use magic in Baana anymore. All those people were killed."

Vitus rolls his eyes. "Obviously not." Septimus falls silent and ponders this for a moment.

"So you're saying that some of the native people of Baana survived and had families?"

"Yes, and I am a descendent of one of those families. There are others like me, I only know this because each family kept in touch throughout the ages, though I haven't spoken to another magic-user for a long time..."

"Are the Cascas..."

"No."

"What about my mother?" Septimus wonders. "Her maiden name is Acelepius." Vitus looks past Septimus, thinking if that is one of the names he was told as a child. Septimus waits patiently.

"Yes..." Vitus says slowly. "That is one of the family names, but I know more by first name."

"I never learned my parents' first names, only my siblings." Vitus shakes his head.

"I shouldn't have told you this much, but as you're here, let's start your training for the day."

*        *        *        *        *        *        *
"Is there a library?" Septimus asks Arcadia as he walks through the door. She stares at him, taking a while to comprehend what he just said.

"Yeah, there is, but I won't tell you where until you answer my question!" she exclaims. "Where did you go so early?"

"I went to go for training," he responds. "I left before the night even began to lighten." Arcadia sighs, shaking her head.

"You realize how dangerous that can be, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm fine, no injuries from anything. Now, where's the library?"

"No, the library can't be accessed by normal people. It is only open to the emperor and his royal subjects as well as the extremely wealthy. I don't know why you would want to go to the library anyway, none of the books there are in our language." She sits down cross-legged and stokes the fire. "If you try to break into the library, it's like trying to break into the palace. Trust me, I've done both and succeeded, but don't tell anyone about that."

"Did you take any of the books?" Septimus wonders. "Or anything from the palace?"

"Ha! I would be suicidal if I took something from the palace!" Arcadia shouts, laughing.

"What about a book?" She stops laughing and stares into the fire. "Okay, so you did. Your silence tells me that much. What was it about?"

"Why the sudden interest in books, Septimus?" she mutters, not looking at him.

"I want to know something, and I think the only place to learn it is from reading books," Septimus explains. "I swear on my life that I won't tell anyone that you stole a book, or reading things about whatever you are reading things on."

"It's a book on magic," Arcadia sighs, giving in. "I wanted to use it, but I can't. It's worthless to me, but I'm not going to admit I stole it or break into the library again to put it back. I nearly got caught last time. I hid it and no one knows where it is, no one looks there because I've never cleaned that spot."

"Can you show me where it is?" Arcadia nods and stands, leading Septimus to the back of the house and moves aside a small desk, revealing a hole in the wall, full of cobwebs and dead animals. Mold grows along the edges of the cavity and spiders can be seen crawling about. She sticks her hand into the hole and reaches around, not even cringing. Eventually Arcadia pulls out a moldy book. The covers are torn, the binding is very loose, and the pages are frayed. She hands it to Septimus, replaces the desk, and goes back to stoking the fire. Septimus opens the book and walks to the table by the fire, sitting down. He opens the book and sees symbols that mean nothing to him.

"Did you understand any of this?" Septimus asks Arcadia, flipping through the book.

"No." Septimus stops flipping and stares at a page that caught his eye. It has an illustration of a young boy turning a lizard in a dragon. If magic can do this, Septimus thinks, then it could do anything.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

"Sir," Septimus says to Vitus the next day after finishing his first half of training. "Do you think you can translate something for me?"

"Depends on what, Septimus," he replies.

"A book," Septimus whispers. Vitus raises an eyebrow. "Don't ask me where I got it, don't ask me any questions about it, I just want you to translate it if you can." Septimus puts the book on the table inbetween them after checking that no one was around. He turns to the page with the lizard-dragon. "If you can't translate the whole book, maybe you can translate this page at least."

Vitus translates the entire book for Septimus, writing down the translation over each line of text. He never says any of it aloud, afraid of accidentally causing something terrible to happen.

"Amazing," Vitus states once reaching the back of the book. "Here there is a list of all magic families that survived Aetius's attack. Aetius and his people must have never been able to translate these books." He points to a name near the top of the list. "My family name, Asellus."

"Is Acelepius there? Or Casca?" Septimus wonders eagerly. Vitus holds up a hand to silence him as he skims the list. Septimus leans forward and notices that Vitus isn't writing down the translation of the names. Once Vitus reads the whole list, he shuts the book and pushes it back toward Septimus, who takes it and puts it away in his bag.

"Acelepius was there, but as I said before, Casca is a non-magical family."

"If Acelepius was there, then how come my mother never told me about being magical?"

"She was probably worried that your father would find out and that you might not be born with magic. There have been cases of magic-users having children that cannot use magic because they are not born with it."

"Shall we test to see if I am a magic-user?"