I thought Witch Week was dark, but what do we think was the body count in The Magicians of Caprona? Like yes, the country is miraculously saved at the last second, but the fighting has reached the city, final reservists have been called up, they’re listening to gunfire all through the final chapters, people are taking refuge in the cathedral because they’re about to die. Their military has to have been decimated to get to this point, right? That’s a LOT of dead citizens.
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me: I think the main character in my book would make a cool commander! He’d be called “Chrestomanci, Nine-Lived Enchanter”
my bf: *immediately constructs this*
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Hard cut from Chris Chant, age 13, declaring that 'when he’s Chrestomanci, there’ll be plenty of children in the castle!' to Chris Chant, age 47, bright green, slightly singed, and full of regret
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"I think I've translated another page," Marinette explained. She gestured to the monitor as she explained, indicating one of the pages of the ancient book. "It talks about the guardian meeting with someone who...controls other worlds? I think? Controls the connections between worlds, maybe?"
"You're losing me," Alya replied. "So this book says, what, there are parallel dimensions? And this is the person who controls them?"
"Maybe. His name is a little harder to figure out. Crest-oh-man-see, I think. Chrestomanci."
Alya stared at her eyebrows raised.
"Chrestomanci," Marinette repeated, the syllables strange on her tongue. "I think that's how you--"
Her words were interrupted by a sudden presence in the room. She whirled around, trying to hide the monitor with her body, eyes wide at the sight of a strange man standing in the middle of her floor.
He was dressed in a dark, impeccably tailored suit, and had one hand in the air as though he was reaching for something on a bookcase. His head swiveled to take in the sight of the girls, his eyes glittering like dark beetles in his austere face.
The man said something. Marinette thought he was speaking English, but she hadn't been keeping up with her lessons. "Alya?"
"Who is he?" Alya hissed back.
The man's expression brightened. "Oh, you're French," he said, in flawless French. "Well, with that difficulty out of the way, let us move on to another. You called for me?"
"We...we did?" Marinette stammered. At least he looked kind. The stern set of his features had faded into a sort of bland pleasantness when he caught sight of the two girls.
"Are you a demon?" Alya demanded. She'd grabbed Marinette's hand and was squeezing it hard enough to make her fingers go numb.
"I should hope not," the man replied with a hint of disdain. "I am Chrestomanci, and I am here because you called me."
"I see," Marinette whispered. "And, uh, who is Chrestomanci?"
"Ah. That would be a very long story," Chrestomanci replied. His eyes took on a sudden twinkle as a smile twitched across his stern features. "You could say it's a story that would take nine lifetimes to tell."
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If you know who Chrestomanci is I will love you forever. This is a crossover idea that started rattling around in my skull (a marble rolled from Miraculous all the way over to Chronicles of Chrestomanci and I haven't been able to separate it).
Picture a younger David Tennant who's kind of an endearing asshole, because even though he's (unfortunately) usually right about everything he's still kind enough to help those in need. And he absolutely refuses to remember the names of people he doesn't like, so he'd constantly be calling Gabriel any other name that popped into his head at that moment.
(Chrestomanci is the title for a specialized enchanter who tries to stop the misuse of magic. For example, traveling to parallel worlds to hunt down sentient creatures for potion ingredients, or using spellcraft to pit two powerful families against each other to leave their province vulnerable for invasion.)
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Thinking back to the Chronicles of Chrestomanci, which I read last year, and I think I just really enjoyed the theme of, yes, Chrestomanci rescuing these children from the horrible things they were going through, but also firmly refusing to let them off the hook for their horrible decisions. The boy in Witch Week acts out in anger and Chrestomanci demands that he fix his mistakes. Gwendolyn is a spoiled brat? She gets punished for that.
And a little off topic—now that I’m reading the Queen’s Thief series, Eugenides and Chrestomanci feel very similar.
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