to swallow too much and to utter in fear, which would be most accurately translated into modern Morin as gulp.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    wand of identification. I lay it carefully on my desk and flipped the case open, revealing a simple glass rod a little longer than my hand, tapering to a point at one end, and etched with spiral grooves all down its length.


    teller; a clockwork device similar to a many-handed clock, that when set to a given arrangement of numbers and a switch was pressed, would produce a completely different arrangement according to a set of secret rules embedded within the workings of the machine. I didn''t understand how it worked – likely nobody outside the Bureaucrat''s Guild did – but I understood that it could be used to authenticate official documents. The same drawer also held a wand, this one in the form of a glass disk suspended on a chain, which I recognized as a wand of proving, another authentication tool, this time for magically watermarked documents.