Academy Codex

The late-Qing, early-Republic bronze mirror that Lan Yingchen's grandmother left to him by name before she died. The pattern on the back is exactly the cracked ring he sees in mid-air—and it is in no catalogue of bronze mirrors.

The academy's first lesson teaches no spellwork at all, only two words: "Seeing"—noticing what should not exist; and the "Void"—stopping for five minutes every morning. The instructor does not explain the "Void".

Before those "who can see" set foot in the academy, someone comes to them first. They call themselves arcane inspectors, and they hide behind the most ordinary of signboards—a counselling office, for instance.

At first what he saw was one ring; later the ring became two. The instructor said: the voice calling you is another you.

A ring floating in mid-air with a gap cut out of it, the gap falling between the three- and four-o'clock marks. Nobody else can see it at all, and no phone can photograph it. And those fine golden lines will "answer" the person who can see.

The academy is divided into five Colleges answering to five civilisations' arts: the Eastern Lineage, Western Magic, the Indic Mantra-Wheel, Middle-Eastern Star-Sand arts, African Ancestral-Spirit Pacts. The five look at the world in wholly opposite ways.