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The first birthday in the atelier is Richeh’s. She turns eleven two weeks after she arrives, and (like most things in Master Qifrey’s atelier so far) she gets the feeling that Master Qifrey and Master Olruggio hadn’t quite thought about how to celebrate things like birthdays yet when she mentions it a few days afterwards. Richeh doesn’t mind – Rili hadn’t been there to surprise her with a beautiful piece of magic that was uniquely his, and she still wants to cry when she thinks about having abandoned him with that awful man, so how could she really celebrate? – but she’s still pleased when dinner that night is accompanied by a little cake just for her, topped with a sparkling fireworks spell. The next day, Master Qifrey takes her to Kalhn instead of doing lessons, and she picks out a new wand at the stationer’s, one much better suited to drawing her tiny spells than the one she’d brought with her from the hall. It’s a late birthday, quieter than she’s used to, but it’s nice all the same.
--
The second birthday in the atelier is Richeh’s too. This time, though, Tetia has been there for a few months, and when Master Qifrey asks a few days beforehand how Richeh wants to celebrate, Tetia’s eyes sparkle with even more enthusiasm than Richeh.
“Birthdays are so exciting! Like magic that’s even more magic!”
Tetia continues on in the same vein for a while, and Richeh tunes her out in favor of finishing the very delicious breakfast in front of her, but there’s a warm bubble in her stomach all the same. She still feels a little sad that she can’t celebrate with Rili, but Tetia’s excitement almost makes up for his absence. None of her fellow apprentices before had ever been so happy to celebrate her birthday.
They spend her birthday outside on a field trip, soft breeze and sun gentle on her face as Master Qifrey guides Tetia through the finer points of a wind spell that had been causing her trouble. Richeh tinkers with a crystal spell while they work, intent on getting something that she can more reliably turn into a soft ribbon. By the time Tetia bounds over to her in glee over finally getting her spell right, Richeh is about to give up on hers for the day with nothing to show but a small piece of crystal that’s not at all ribbon-like.
“Oh, it’s like a prism!” Tetia says, looking at the crystal in Richeh’s hand. “Can I see it?”
“You can keep it,” she says, handing it over. The sparkle is nice in the sun, but she has a whole stash of them in various shapes and sizes at this point. If someone else wants the results of her work in progress, they’re welcome to it. Tetia’s eyes light up like Richeh’s just done her a huge favor, though, and that’s more than enough for an unfinished spell.
That night at dinner, there’s a cake big enough for all of them (even Master Olly, who manages to stumble out of his own atelier long enough to gruffly wish Richeh a happy birthday) accompanied by some of Richeh’s favorite dishes. Afterwards, Tetia presents her a small cloth-wrapped bundle with a flourish. Inside is a pair of hairpins, just the right style to keep her hair out of her face while she’s concentrating. A decorative flourish on the end of both pins catches her eye, and Richeh squints at one. Tetia had taken the crystal and cut it neatly into two tiny diamond shapes just right for a hairpin. It would’ve been tricky work to do without shattering and she’s impressed.
“Thanks for the compliment,” Tetia says with a smile when Richeh tells her as much, “and thanks for your thanks. A double thanks day!”
It’s silly, Tetia’s thing with the thanks, but her enthusiasm is so infectious, Richeh doesn’t even feel the need to roll her eyes this time.
--
The third birthday in the atelier is Agott’s twelfth birthday, a bare handful of months after Richeh’s and mere weeks after she first arrives to study with Master Qifrey.
Privately, Richeh wonders if Agott even wants to celebrate her birthday. She hasn’t been at the atelier for long, but all Richeh has ever seen her do is study, determined to (as she keeps saying) make up for all the lost time trying to find the right teacher and show everyone what she can do. The lamp is lit in Agott’s workroom until late, and every time Richeh sees its glimmer on her way to bed, she appreciates sharing a workroom with Tetia even more. Birthday celebrations do not seem like an Agott kind of thing.
But Richeh is not missing out on one of Master Qifrey’s special desserts just because Agott wants to put so much energy into trying to impress other people with the magic they want her to do that she has no time to rest even for birthdays, thank you very much. When Master Qifrey asks Agott how she wants to celebrate, Richeh can see her expression shift toward a frown, so before the words I need to study can emerge from Agott’s mouth, Richeh puts on her best innocent expression and cuts in with a quick “Master Qifrey makes the absolute best birthday cakes.”
The master in question looks a touch bemused by her vocal enthusiasm for his baking, but there’s a definite snort from the direction of Master Olly in the kitchen. Tetia picks up on Richeh’s cue – she wants dessert too then – and doubles down on the magic of birthdays until Agott finally, reluctantly, says that maybe it would be nice to have a cake after they’d finished lessons for the day. Richeh counts it as a victory.
Agott’s birthday is like any other day in the atelier, as requested, but Richeh notices how much Agott’s eyes light up when Master Qifrey brings out a cake topped with a delicate frosting searose the same color as their robes. She notices too the tiny smile on Agott’s lips when she thanks Tetia and Richeh for the small bundle of nice quire paper they’d gone in on together.
Birthday celebrations might actually be an Agott kind of thing after all, it turns out.
--
The fourth birthday in the atelier is Tetia’s. She turns twelve in the fall, months after Richeh and Agott, and in the weeks leading up to it, Richeh is deeply curious how magic Tetia wants to make her own birthday. But Tetia is oddly quiet about it, spending an unusually long time tinkering away on spells on her side of the workroom instead. She’s suddenly almost as bad about staying up to work as Agott, and Richeh starts to get a little concerned when their workroom lamp is still lit long after she’s gotten ready for bed for the third night in the row. It’s not enough to get her to go to Master Qifrey – if Tetia wants to work on spells, she should be allowed to work on spells – but she does think about going to ask Master Olly if he had any advice on what to do if someone was working too hard.
(What stops her, in the end, is the way Master Olly looks the next time she sees him; she didn’t know circles under your eyes could turn that dark. Clearly he wasn’t the right person to ask about working too hard.)
The night before her birthday, Tetia is still up far later than usual, workroom light bright over a pile of scratched-out spells, and even though Richeh has been okay letting her be until now, the sight of Tetia’s face set in uncharacteristically angry frustration as Richeh passes by on her way to the bath finally nudges her into action.
“Are you going to bed?” Richeh asks, to get Tetia’s attention. “I can get the light.”
There’s no answer for a long moment, and Richeh starts to wonder if Tetia even heard her, but –
“I really wanted to get this spell right for my birthday before I went to bed,” Tetia blurts out, her pigtails shaking just a bit with her frustration. “I’ve been dreaming about it for ages and I wanted to show everyone but nothing seems to work right when I draw.”
“Ah,” Richeh says. She knows how that feels, trying to get your very own spell just right when none of the sigils seem to fit what you want to do.
“I wanted it to be a surprise to share, but…” Tetia sighs and leans over onto her desk, crossing her arms and burying her face in the bundle of abandoned scrap paper. “I guess my birthday won’t be so magical after all.”
Tetia’s words are muffled, as is the giant sigh she heaves that sends a tiny scrap of paper fluttering over towards Richeh. Richeh picks it up and, on an impulse, grabs her wand off her own desk, and scribbles a spell she knows by heart. She sets the paper down carefully next to Tetia and closes the circle with one tiny stroke.
It’s nothing much, really, just a silly little spell that she’d drawn a hundred times as a kid to make Rili smile, but when Tetia looks up to see what she’s doing and finds a tiny brushbuddy dancing next to her, her eyes light up and she laughs.
“Master Qifrey’s cakes are enough to make anybody’s birthday magical,” Richeh says firmly; that seems to seal it for Tetia, whose expression finally loses its last bit of frustration.
“You’re right, Richeh, birthdays are like magic that’s even more magic! And doubly so with cake!”
With that, Richeh leaves her to it, and by the time she heads to bed, their workroom is dark. The next day, Tetia is the cheeriest she’s been in weeks, pulling Agott into an unexpectedly spirited discussion of the best spells to use to decorate a birthday cake over breakfast – Agott prefers flowers, Tetia sugar sparkles. She’s even cheerier when she opens the carefully decorated set of hair ties Richeh and Agott had worked together to make for her.
Birthdays really might be magic that’s even more magic, Richeh thinks for the first time.
--
When Coco comes to the atelier and has her own birthday – the sixth one in the atelier, two months after Richeh’s 13th birthday, more full of wonder over Master Qifrey’s cakes than even Tetia – Richeh is even more convinced that they’re the best magic.