IX. Life — The Ezra Six (2)

Edwin Sanjrani, born after his mother’s cancer mysteriously receded during pregnancy, grows up a biomantic “miracle” able to see bodily failures. His gifts burden him with responsibility as he eases his parents’ deaths and trains as a diagnostic biomancer, striving to help despite rising public backlash against biomancy.

At the London School of Magic, Edwin becomes socially successful and joins the Bishops, but is never recruited by the Alexandrians. Disillusioned by hypocrisy and inequity, he embraces the Forum’s Causes, rebranding himself as Nothazai. Ezra Fowler later leverages Edwin’s fatal hazing of Spencer to open a path toward the library, confirming the Society’s reality and intensifying Nothazai’s ambition to expose or remake it.

Confronted with the danger of placing Alexandrian knowledge in state or capitalist hands, Nothazai weighs his mission against humanity’s failures. Offered the Caretakership after Atlas, he imagines forcing the Society into the light, but fatigue and contempt drain his resolve. He decides instead to control access and curate what the world receives.

As Caretaker, Nothazai moves through the house’s relics and meets Elizabeth “Libby” Rhodes in the reading room. He notes her as emblematic of power misused while recalling a recent bargain to heal a young girl and his assessment that Parisa Kamali may face future illness. He and Libby submit archive requests via the tubes.

Parisa, who has withheld a crucial insight about the archives, lingers as an unseen factor. Nothazai steps out to read his slip and receives a familiar verdict: REQUEST DENIED. Libby sees it and recognizes his self-made prison—the same rejection she once faced—just as the archives finally grant her request about whether she could have saved her sister.

Nothazai’s denial hardens his isolation and control, while Libby’s unexpected permission tempts her toward answers she has sacrificed much to pursue, signaling shifting leverage within the Society.