Magic
Resonance
Every enchanted thing hums at its own frequency. The art is holding several of them in balance at once.
Books, marks and magical objects each carry a unique resonance. In practice this is what a student learns to hear: books orbiting slowly overhead, each humming its own note.
Control is not force but balance between different magical frequencies — and that balance is the hard part. Elemental resonance is a subject of study in its own right, treated in the Codex of Twilight and in Marcus Zephyr’s notes.
In the books
This is established in The Awakening, book 1 of The Arcane Odyssey.
Explore The Awakening