Aristhaeus couldn't understand how the amulet worked exactly. Due to the protective spells, he couldn't control the amulet's energy. He couldn't even tell if it could be controlled, or transformed from defensive into offensive.
So now he was simply observing the object that silently lay on the table. Indeed there was something to learn. There was something suspicious about the amulet's invisibility.
He summoned the power of the Seventh Fire and gently approached the amulet to see how it will react. He didn't attack it, nor did he try to break its spells. His magic just stroked the amulet. But even before that the effect was clear: the moment he summoned his Seventh Fire abilities, the amulet became invisible.
So, the amulet reacted in a strange way to the Seventh Fire. Could the amulet react specifically and only to the Seventh Fire? This could shed light upon many other things, seemingly unrelated. For example, Elyre's lineage.
An enchanted object that could become invisible under a certain influence was rare. Throughout history, there were just a few instances of such type of magic described.
In order to make an item sensitive only to certain magic, you had to control both the item and the magic in question... This meant that the person who created Elyre's amulet had had control over both the Seventh Fire and the amulet.
This person must have been a royal... as only royals and the archmage were connected to the Seventh Fire.
Could Elyre be from the royal family as well? This would explain her talent in magic, too. After all, her great great great grandfather would be the mage-king Darius himself!
But what about her spirit guardian? He had the same amulet...
…A missing sister of Princess Junnica Arunai? Could it be? No. All princesses except Junnica were known to have died… Who was Elyre?
Elyre's amulet became invisible once he touched it with the magic of the Seventh Fire.
"Whoa! Did you do this on purpose?" Elyre exclaimed. "How did you do that?"
"No, it wasn't on purpose," he said. It was not a lie. It truly wasn't. He was still trying to find out how the amulet worked. He didn't want to reach conclusions too quickly.
Why would somebody create an amulet that would become invisible? To hide it, of course.
This wasn't the only thing unusual about Elyre's amulet. Normally, every Allyrian person had magical powers that could be felt by mages, and thus mages could sense people's presence. However, Elyre's presence sometimes vanished as if she wasn't there. The resonance of her natural power also varied.
The amulet was hiding not only itself but also Elyre's magical abilities.
The amulet could somehow even hide her presence. No magical protection he was aware of could do this. ...That had happened back when they had encountered the gorgons and the dragon. Perhaps Elyre had been afraid of these creatures, and she had somehow "disappeared" from mage radars.
It had also happened a long time ago, in Wild Wood, when Elyre had thrown a sword at Aristhaeus not knowing it was him...
People in the library were getting back to the dormitories as it was getting late.
~It's become considerably quieter.~
He'd been staring at the amulet on the desk for quite some time but now he leaned on his arm and stared at Elyre. She'd been silent all along.
"Are you worried?" she asked.
"No. Why would I be worried?"
"You don't say anything..." she shrugged.
"What happened to your research?" he said.
"We found many books. Hopefully we will find some of Princess Nymphica's prescriptions. But we still have a lot of work." She was starting to feel a little bit sleepy. "What do you think about the amulet?"
"I am not sure yet. I still have to... experiment with it." He was thoughtful. "Do you think I will discover something?"
He smiled, she wasn't sure.
He said,
"Your amulet reminds me of a story I've heard. About a boy who found a powerful artifact like this amulet, or maybe more powerful. And then he became very well respected and became a prince."
He made a very long pause.
She wondered. Maybe this was the story of Aladdin? Maybe the boy found a genie or a wish-granting golden fish?
"And what happened to him?"
"He was not so happy once he became so powerful. Because he'd had to give up on people he'd thought he could trust. He had to protect the power he'd gained, but the situation was very complicated. He wasn't sure how much of his thoughts was real and how much was fantasy and fears."
Elyre was not sure how her amulet could have reminded him of this story. She bent her head to one side in curiosity. But when he stopped talking, she was speechless. She didn't know why he was telling this story and if it was right for her to pry...
"It was a very tiring day today," he said. "Perhaps we should relax."
She nodded. It was evening, too late, and at that time other people fell asleep.
"Why don't we go for a walk before getting back to the dormitory?" he suggested.