The magician, pleased with the girl's progress, slowed the speed of her education. They had more free time. They spent their evenings reading books, together or separately. Ciri waded through Stammelford's Dialogues on the Nature of Magic, Giambattista's Forces of the Elements and Richert and Monck's Natural Magic. She also flicked through - because she did not manage to read them in their entirety - such works as Jan Bekker's The Invisible World and Agnes of Glanville's The Secret of Secrets. She dipped into the ancient, yellowed Codex of Mirthe, Ard Aercane, and even the famous, terrible Dhu Dwimmermorc, full of menacing etchings.
She also reached for other books which had nothing to do with magic. She read The History of the World and A Treatise on Life. Nor did she leave out lighter
