They met under vaults where stasis kept libraries young. Sigils dreamed in the margins; inks remembered heat. Magnus's eye brightened at every locked case; his hands were careful, his curiosity not.
"Wisdom is a key," he said, resting fingers near a warded clasp.
"Keys are honest tools," Aurelia agreed. "But too many doors open and a house stops being a home."
"You could open them all," he said quietly. His voice thinned, almost reverent. "You could be the house, the doors, and the keys—perhaps the road that leads to it as well. Do you know what you are?"
She did not look away. "I am your sister," she said, and the truth of it steadied her. "I do not yet know what else I am—but for now, that is enough. For you, and for me."
Magnus's eye softened. "Forgive me," he said, voice low and warm. "Awe made me clumsy. Sister… I would not press you into a name."
"I could," she said after a few seconds. "I could drink the sea and call it knowledge, and never thirst again—and never taste water either. If I chose to be all‑seeing, I would be less than I am. I'd miss the sound of this page, your breath when you hesitate, the way ink remembers heat. If I became everything, I would lose your teachings as teachings—a student without a teacher, wisdom without hands. I would rather keep a little not‑knowing so I can learn from you, ask you questions, and give the hours a way to be with you. So I keep the doors small and stay here—now."
He watched her as a scholar watches the one pupil who outpaces the lesson—brightest not for knowing everything, but for knowing when not to know. Pride rose first, clean and honest; a thin thread of envy followed and did not bite, wrapped quickly in respect. In his own fashion, as much as a man married to knowledge can love anything, he loved her: fiercely, thoughtfully, from a gentleness that meant no harm.
He sensed in her an everything she did not name—perhaps did not fully know—and the wisdom to refuse drowning in its tide. Magnus bowed his head, not in surrender but in acknowledgement. He reached to close the warded clasp he had almost opened and left a fresh quill by her ledger—his way of promising to teach again tomorrow. He would not always keep his own restraint. He would remember that someone had.