"When's the next council meeting? And how do people not from families usually awaken?"

"Sometimes they do run across information by accident, and meet someone friendly before someone dangerous. Other times a friend from a family with lax rules decides to trust them a bit more than would be wise, or they distinguish themselves in a group that turns out to have practitioners at the core.

For you the hardest part would be explaining how you got glamour. It might be easier to pretend not to be so new at this, if not for the fact that some of them know you."

"I'm not planning on using the glamour very often or right away, anyway. And is it plausible that they may have just not noticed me?"

"Not really. There's some leeway; I doubt they scan everyone daily so they won't immediately know it was literally today, but someone would have noticed if you'd been a practitioner for very long."

"Hmm. Could I pretend I always knew about it, that my mother was a practitioner and had Essentials—I assume that's a book?—and I only chose to awaken recently?"

"They wouldn't be able to see through that by looking. They might suspect something if they've seen you follow an Other without seeming to know what it was, and they might wonder why you waited so long without any practitioner contacts here and why you didn't tell them you knew.

Essentials is a book, yes. Nearly all novices this hemisphere read it. I'll probably have to give you a copy and just hope it won't matter that the edition will be too recent."

"Couldn't I just say I'd rather not say how I awakened?"

"They'll know you awakened somehow, and would guess that that someone in Jacob's Bell is awakening random people their children know from school. That's the kind of thing that definitely affects the balance of power, so you'd have a spotlight on you while they try to figure out what you're not saying. Implying that it was from your mother is probably the less risky. They'll be more willing to follow a request not to ask for more details."

"Yeah, I guess, though I'd need to mislead without lying. What reason could I possibly have not to awaken earlier?" Pause. "Misgivings about genderfluidity is a possibility."

"Could be. Though even then something would have had to change to explain why now. Did you have a birthday recently? Some holiday that might plausibly be a family tradition? Or even an event; "finally managed to complete an arbitrary task" fell out of use a long time ago but still hangs around in some families. If nothing else we could look up recent astronomical events that your mother could conceivably have inherited a tradition of awakening near.

Good reasons are hard to come by. But we don't need a good reason, and there aren't a lot of limitations on where to look for plausible ones."

"My birthday was in November. Arbitrary task would make sense, I suppose. How would I phrase that in such a way as to not arouse suspicions when I don't directly say it?"

"You just say you did the thing and awakened today. The problem, aside from the fact that tasks like that were in most cases calibrated for children, is that it implies an old family which implies they might have heard of it. Probably safer to use astronomy, or pin the delay on your current guardian's disapproval."

"I don't think Tobias would know about Others, and if he did he'd lead a crusade against them and practitioners as unholy abominations."

"See? Disapproval.

Maybe you only recently became confident you could hide the practice from him. Which is true, since you didn't know there was such a thing earlier. The others might disapprove of keeping that a secret, but they know exactly how bad an idea it is to tell someone so you're mostly safe on that front."

"Huh, yeah, not a bad idea."

"Excellent. Then this is for the cover story, and this one is because it's an area I hope you'll decide to progress in." Two books float over. Local near-omnipotence: the world's most convenient disability accommodation. One of the books is labeled Essentials, the other Summonings and Bindings.

She accepts the book, looks at the second one, and raises an eyebrow.

"For your seal. It'll cover capturing Others and paying or forcing them to agree to things. Usually with an eye toward making them serve you; there aren't many practitioners who try to affect long-term behavior."

"Ah. Makes sense." She looks at Essentials, then. "What exactly does this one have?"

"Instructions for the awakening ritual,  generalities on different types of Others, basics of different types of magic, and some history for context on some of the weirder aspects. It'd be a good idea to read Essentials on its own merits, even aside from the fact that everyone will think you have."

"Oh, interesting," she says, examining it some more and opening it to leaf through it. "Does it teach any other kinds of magic? Than awakening?"

"It gives some instructions. Nothing very high-level, but it gives foundations for a lot of categories. Mostly it's about what this whole magic thing is, aimed toward new practitioners. It also includes enough information to do the three major rituals, and some advice."

"Ooh, cool, then I'm gonna figure out how you did your demesne thing."

"I won't hold you to that. To whatever extent it was a promise to me, consider yourself released. For the rest of it...I guess I wish you luck figuring it out. Be careful with statements like that. You just accidentally raised the stakes."

"Hold—oh. Of course. Er. Well, can you tell me if Essentials has enough information for me to figure that out on my own, conditional on my being ingenious enough?"