Jexstir

You thought I was dead?

Cree buying 'the mage' a magic primer and a blank journal to inscribe their spells into. He has to recollect his skills again somehow.

Mage having some troubles following the spell book. Is it an after-effect of having been dead? Is he defective somehow? Did Cree bet on the wrong dead body?

Mage starting to keep a journal because, well... maybe he can't read all that easily anymore but he can still write in simple sentences and draw little pictures.

Cree doesn't know he keeps a journal. She just thinks he's very diligently studying as best as his slow, recovering brain will allow.

So a little point on how Molly will/does feel about Empty!Caleb/mage!

He is seeing how somebody might recognise him as Lucien and how he knows he is a very different person from the man who died before.

This means he sees this 'Caleb' and knows that whoever this is, they are *not* the same man. Gone, beyond any shadow of a doubt in Molly's mind, is their traumatised, shaky companion who he was slowly starting to thaw out before Lorenzo took that from him.

Admitting the possibility of this even being ever so slightly Caleb also means confronting a reality he doesn't want to face.

That potentially he might possibly still be Lucien. That he might not actually be Mollymauk, just some 'aspect' of a man who tried some shady magic once upon a time and ended up dead for the effort.

Not everybody deals with reunions well.

Could there have been multiple different facets of his personality?